Lotto Luck Feeds Dreams Of Struggling Car Racer

“When we win the lottery, we’re going to. …” How many times have you heard someone say that?

Followed by, “take a trip around the world,” or “buy a place in Hawaii,” or “buy Mom a new house and put aside the kids’ college tuition” or. …

Kenny and Marylou Smith of El Monte hit it big in California’s Super Lotto, winning $22.8 million in 1994. Now, every Sept. 17 until 2014 they get a check for $883,217 from the state of California.

And so they’re off to see the world?

Nope. They formed Quick Pick Motorsports and bought race cars for Kenny to drive.

“We’ve always gone racing,” said Marylou, the registered owner of the No. 43 Chevrolet her husband drives in Winston West races, and the No. 43 Ford he runs on smaller California tracks. “It’s what we’ve always wanted to do, so why stop now?”

No argument from the family driver.

“If it wasn’t for the race cars, I’d go nuts,” Kenny Smith said. “There’s nothing worse than boredom.”

Kenny was racing - and winning - at Saugus Speedway the night his numbers - 16, 18, 28, 30, 34, 37 - came up.

At the time, there was a “For Sale” sign on the Ford Kenny was driving in what he feared was his farewell to racing. That night he won the trophy dash, a heat and the main event, clinching the track’s Pro Stock championship.

“We were in hock, about to lose everything, trying to keep our repair shop going,” Smith recalled. “We’d refinanced our house (and) had sold everything we could, except the race car. We were six months behind on our shop rent and about to have our home foreclosed. The race car was all we had left, and it was for sale.”

The Smiths were at work the following Monday morning in their automotive repair shop in Azusa. They hadn’t bothered to check the numbers on the tickets Marylou had bought because they had heard on the radio that the winning numbers were sold in Azusa.

“We bought the tickets at Callahan’s (restaurant), and we thought it was in Irwindale, so we didn’t pay much attention to it,” Kenny said. “Monday morning, I was ordering parts. It was about 10:35 when someone said, ‘Did you hear about the guy in Azusa who won $22 million and hasn’t shown up to claim it? Did you buy tickets?’ I said, ‘Yeah, we get five bucks’ worth every week.’

“Then Marylou got a call from Callahan’s, asking if we’d checked our numbers.

“There was a Lotto guy there who said the winning ticket came from their place. He said he wanted to know if it could be ours. The tickets were in my pocket, so I handed them to Marylou. She’d bought 10, so they started reading her the numbers. When she heard the sixth number - it was on the very first series - she started jumping up and down, screaming. I told her to calm down, I was trying to talk to a customer.

“She said, ‘Listen to this guy on the phone.’ I closed the window, told the customer to wait a minute (and said), ‘I think we won the lottery.’ “(The man on the phone) read the numbers off again - I was just numb. You know, you can’t believe it. You keep checking and rechecking and rechecking some more.”

The winning ticket soon took on a life of its own.

“People wanted to touch it, to look at it, like they look at a new baby,” said Marylou. “We guarded it with our life. It was like it was alive and we had to protect it.”

Then the Smiths indulged themselves, hiring a stretch limo and wearing matching T-shirts from Callahan’s when they turned in their ticket at the state lottery office in Whittier.

“We were blessed, truly blessed,” Marylou says.