From the comfort of his living room, Mike Smith likes to lounge in his recliner in the morning, sip coffee and enjoy an expansive view of Oak Harbor.

The pace in Oak Harbor, a city of 22,000, is nothing like what he and his wife Pattie grew accustomed to while spending most of their lives in San Diego, which teems with more than 1.3 million residents.

“It’s all hustle and bustle there,” Smith said. “Here, everyone’s laid back.

“We call it Mayberry.”

The slower pace suits Smith most days yet he knows he has a unique outlet to speed things up when he grows restless.

Any day, the phone could ring from his sponsor and a date with a drag strip could be set.

Smith is a nostalgia drag racer in the NHRA’s Hot Rod Heritage Racing Series.

Retired after 40 years as a tile contractor in San Diego, Smith took his passion in motorsports to a new level when he slipped inside a cockpit of a dragster and began racing 15 years ago.

Competing in the 7.0 Pro class, Smith has enjoyed success, winning six races and making 12 finals in alcohol-fueled dragsters.

At age 63, he’s on a bit of a hot streak of late, winning two big events in 2013. He went to Beech Bend Raceway in Bowling Green, Ky., in June and won the Holley National Hot Rod Reunion, then followed that up in October with a title at the California Hot Rod Reunion in Bakersfield.

“When I put the helmet on, I’m 19-years-old,” Smith said.

Smith isn’t into racing for paychecks, which are sparse in his class, or even points to win a series title.

Smith, who competes in only a half dozen or so races each year, races for the purest of reasons that fuel most drag racers — whipping the guy in the lane next to you ­— as well as pleasing his sponsors.

His primary sponsor is San Diego-based Crower Cams & Equipment Company, a maker of engine components, which pays for his expenses when he travels.

Growing up in the drag racing hotbed of Southern California, Smith was a fan of the sport at an early age but didn’t get hooked as a competitor until much later in life.

He was so bent on racing that he was ready to sell one of his prize possessions, a 1934 Ford five-window coupe, to buy a dragster before he had even raced one down a drag strip. But his wife reasoned with him and convinced him to try it out first to see if this was what he really wanted to do.

Once he got done testing out the dragster, she knew they were in trouble.

“He almost floated when he got out of that car,” Pattie Smith said.

Smith enrolled in Frank Hawley’s NHRA Drag Racing School to learn the ropes and to help ease his wife’s concerns, then gradually started making a name for himself on the drag strip at nostalgia events that were growing in popularity.

He won his first of three California Hot Rod Reunions in 2003. In perhaps his biggest feat, he won the 2009 March Meet at Famoso Raceway in Bakersfield.

“The March Meet is like winning the Super Bowl,” Smith said.

In the intimate world of drag racing, Smith rubs elbows with many of NHRA’s legends and top professional drivers at races or events and is friends with some. It’s not uncommon for some of the sport’s top names such as John Force or Ron Capps to be in attendance at some of the bigger nostalgia events.

Strapping himself to a machine that travels nearly 200 mph and covers a quarter mile in roughly seven seconds is the latest thrill of an adventure-filled life for Smith, who also immersed himself in surfing, motorcycles and sand buggies.

“He’s a maniac,” Pattie said. “He doesn’t do anything half way.”

On the drag strip, Smith has avoided serious incidents, including a time in Las Vegas when a blown engine sprayed oil all over his visor, leaving him unable to see as he traveled at excessive speed down the strip. He said he timed the deployment of his parachutes by scooting his visor down to see as well as by instinct.

“You kind of know where you’re at,” he said.

Another time, a rear axle broke during a run, causing his dragster to turn sharply, but he made a steering correction he credited to his days driving dune buggies.

Smith said when something isn’t right with his dragster, he doesn’t push it. He shuts down.

“You race another day,” he said.

For Smith, that involves waiting for a phone call from his sponsor. He has a handful of races scheduled this year, including the New England Hot Rod Reunion in Epping, N.H., in September.

Until he gets a call, he and his wife of 39 years just enjoy the slower pace of retired life in Oak Harbor.

They moved to Oak Harbor a year and half ago to be closer to their daughter.

They began signing papers to buy their home that overlooks the city only hours after discovering it.

Smith remodeled the basement into a den that features some of his racing trophies and converted a patio into what he calls his “Tiki Room” to remind him and his wife of the beach and more tropical climate of San Diego.

But mostly, Smith likes to relax and gaze out at the streets below and check out the sparse traffic he still has trouble grasping.

“How could you not like it here?” Smith said. “It’s like you’re on vacation every day.”

Smith doesn’t get into much trouble behind a steering wheel in Oak Harbor. His driving his limited to his riding lawnmower and a 1971 Volkswagen Beetle.

“Around town, I don’t speed,” he said.