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NASCAR Camping World Trucks Series
DILLON: Everything Is Bigger In Texas
DRIVER DIARY: It was great to lead the first 20 laps of the Texas truck series race, but I’d much rather have led the last 20...
Austin Dillon  | http://www.teamdillonracing.com/  |  Posted June 10, 2010   Brooklyn, MI
Austin Dillon continues to flex his muscle at Darlington. (Photo: LAT Photographic)
I learned a valuable lesson last weekend at Texas that I’m hoping to apply to Saturday’s NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at Michigan.

Pacing the field in the opening laps of a race isn’t nearly as important as doing it in the final laps.

It was great to lead the first 20 laps of the Texas race, the first of my Truck Series career, but I’d much rather have led the last 20. Fortunately, I don’t think the No. 3 Bass Pro Shops Chevrolet team is too far from achieving this.

Scoring our first top-five finish and pole position at Texas was a huge relief for me and a burden off of my shoulders. But I never dreamed we’d earn a pole so early in the season. I love qualifying these trucks and our guys have done a good job of putting fast trucks under me, which makes a rookie driver’s job a lot easier. The Bass Pro Shops Chevrolet team’s preparation has enabled me to focus on learning the tracks and qualifying well instead of worrying about changing our setups all throughout practice.

We’ve made strides such as this because our team has really pulled together to put the adversity at Dover and Charlotte behind us. We had great trucks in both of those races and were headed for good finishes before we got derailed. We suffered a transmission failure at Dover and had an issue with a lug nut on a pit stop at Charlotte.
NASCAR Camping World Truck Series driver Austin Dillon, No. 3 Bass Pro Shops/Tracker Boats Chevrolet, celebrates winning his first career NASCAR National Series pole at Texas Motor Speedway. (Photo: Jonathan Ferrey/Getty Images)

So, we’ve been going over everything with a fine-tooth comb to help us get the best finishes we can out of our truck. The entire Richard Childress Racing crew did an awesome job of going over each item on our checklist twice before the green flag waved at Texas. We did everything right from the pre-race stuff to the final laps, and that diligence paid off with our first top five. Now we just need to keep hitting the repeat button on that performance.

I think we’re on our way to doing that because we learned a lot at Charlotte three weeks ago during a practice session. Danny Stockman may be a rookie crew chief, but he originally served as Ron Hornaday’s car chief for a long time and brought over a huge notebook. He also has taken advantage of every resource we have at RCR to make these Bass Pro Shops Chevy trucks better.

Other people, such as Mike Skinner, have helped me improve greatly over the past couple of races. Skinner and I were battling for third in the closing laps at Texas but I nipped him at the finish line. He came up to me afterward and told me how proud he was of me, which meant the world to me coming from the guy who originally drove the black No. 3 truck for RCR. Skinner has taught me a lot through his advice and the way he races me. He also has shown me how to make good passes, which we were able to do a lot of at Texas.

We’ve still got a lot to learn but now it’s more of the tedious things such as getting on and off pit road and in and out of our pit box. I’ve been getting killed on the restarts and this is the area we need to focus on the most. If we can get the restarts worked out and still have trucks strong enough to be in the top five at the end of the race, that’s when the ability to really take off on a restart will benefit our team. It seems like everyone claims their position in those first few laps after a late-race restart.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get to race on a simulator in preparation for Michigan this weekend. But I did watch tapes from past races there and learned some of the characteristics of the track. Drafting appears to be very important at Michigan, so I’ve got to be up on the wheel the entire time, focusing on who is around me. Michigan also seems to be a very technical track that has multiple racing grooves because of its width. There’s got to be a line out there somewhere that will give me some good grip and hopefully take us straight to the front.

Austin Dillon is the rookie driver of the No. 3 Bass Pro Shops Chevrolet Silverado for Richard Childress Racing in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series. Dillon is the grandson of RCR President and CEO, Richard Childress, and the son of Mike Dillon, a former NASCAR driver who is now RCR’s vice president of competition. The Clemmons, N.C., native began his racing career in 2005 driving Bandaleros and Legends cars, progressing to dirt and asphalt Late Model cars by 2007. He earned rookie of the year honors and finished second in the 2008 NASCAR Camping World Series East point standings. That same year, Dillon made his NASCAR Nationwide Series debut at Richmond International Raceway in September and earned a fourth-place finish at Memphis Motorsports Park in October in only his second race. In 2009, Dillon competed in the NASCAR Camping World Series, ARCA Racing Series, Nationwide Series and made two starts in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series driving RCR’s famous black No. 3 Chevrolet Silverado. In the fall of 2009, he enrolled in High Point University’s Nido R. Quebin School of Communications as an incoming freshman. For more information about Dillon, please visit: www.rcrracing.com, www.teamdillonracing.com and www.bassproshops.com. To follow Dillon on Twitter or Facebook, please visit: twitter.com/rcr3adillon or www.facebook.com/RichardChildressRacing.

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The opinions reflected herein are solely those of the above commentator and are not necessarily those of SPEED.com, FOX, NewsCorp, or SPEED
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