Swims, 42, passed away at his home outside Atlanta on Sept. 28 after a courageous seven-year battle with cancer. He was involved in dirt-track racing for his entire life and in August was inducted into the National Dirt Late Model Hall of Fame.
 
“Mike was a visionary who worked every day to advance weekly short-track racing,” said Tom Deery, World Racing Group President and CEO. “Any person who visited the (Swims) family tracks felt special, like they were part of the family.
 
“His legacy is clear, his contributions many, and our memory of Mike will be forever.”
 
The son of longtime dirt-track operator and fellow 2007 Dirt Late Model Hall of Fame inductee Mickey Swims, Mike worked with his family since his teenage years as the Vice President and General Manager of Dixie Speedway in Woodstock, Ga., and Rome (Ga.) Speedway. He was instrumental in making Dixie, which hosted a World of Outlaws Sprint Car event in 2007, and Rome among the most successful short tracks in the nation.
 
Swims also gained national acclaim for founding the Hav-A-Tampa Dirt Late Model Series in 1990. Following the 2003 season he sold the tour, which later became known as the United Dirt Track Racing Association (UDTRA) and the Xtreme DirtCar Series before being purchased by the World Racing Group in 2005, but not before bringing the sport of dirt Late Model racing into the national spotlight by pioneering television coverage of series events. In recent years, he also was a special consultant to the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series.
 
World of Outlaws Late Model Series star Clint Smith of Senoia, Ga., had a long history with Swims, winning the Hav-A-Tampa Series championship in 1993 and running many events at Dixie and Rome.
 
“Mike Swims was a lifelong friend and a leader of dirt Late Model promotion and advancement,” Smith said in a statement issued following Swims’s passing. “Clint Smith and family send out our heartfelt condolences to the family of Mike Swims.”
 
Another WoO LMS regular from Georgia, Locust Grove’s Shane Clanton, also has entered many events promoted by Swims. The 32-year-old credits Swims for advancing dirt Late Model racing to the point where he can make a living competing in the division today.
 
“He was one of the pioneers of the national traveling series for dirt Late Models,” Clanton said of Swims. “He knew how to get people to the track and pay good money to the racers, and the direction he took the sport is why we’re doing what we’re doing today.”
 
Chub Frank of Bear Lake, Pa., who sits second in the 2007 WoO LMS points standings, won Swims’s annual autumn dirt Late Model classic, the ‘Dixie Shootout’ at Dixie Speedway, in 2001.
 
“He was a really good promoter,” Frank said of Swims. “The year we won the ‘Shootout,’ I was the STARS/Renegade (Series) champion and he wanted us to come down to run against his UDTRA guys. He knew that would be good for the show, so he helped us out to come down.”
 
Mike Swims is survived by his wife of 21 years, Debra; 16-year-old daughter Breanna a junior at Woodstock High School; 18-year-old son Chase, a freshman at University of Alabama; his parents Mickey and Martha; sister and brother-in-law Mia and Marshall Green; and nieces Macy and Marla Green.
 
In lieu of flowers, the Swims family requests donations be made to the Dirt Racing Outreach Ministry (DRO), 4920 Racoon Valley Rd., Knoxville, TN, 37938 (www.4DRO.com).