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TAKE ME TO...
NASCAR Camping World Trucks Series
DILLON: New To Nashville
DRIVER DIARY: I’ve never been to Nashville so I’ll go to Kevin Harvick and some other veteran drivers for help...
Austin Dillon  | http://www.teamdillonracing.com/  |  Posted March 31, 2010   Charlotte, NC
Austin Dillon continues to flex his muscle at Darlington. (Photo: LAT Photographic)
Friday’s NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at Nashville Superspeedway should be another learning experience for the No. 3 Bass Pro Shops Chevrolet team. But then again, most race tracks on our schedule are new to me.

Last weekend’s race at Martinsville was the first time I’d raced on the half-mile paperclip and we got an education pretty quickly. We had a great truck the whole day and ran in the top 10 for a good portion of the race, but had a bunch of setbacks we didn’t need.

First of all, I didn’t get far enough into the pit box on the first pit stop and then we had the back tires mixed up on the next stop. We’re going to work on issues like this and get them fixed. But the other teams knew the Bass Pro Shops Chevy truck was there and that was a good feeling.

The main thing I picked up at Martinsville was to learn from the veterans and the guys up front. It was wild near the front and was every man for himself. I had to accept the fact that I was going to get moved around and just make the best of it. That’s what short track racing is all about. We did a pretty good job of that until the end of the race when I was trying to hold my position. That didn’t quite work out as I’d hoped but the seat time was invaluable for the No. 3 team.

I ran the K&N East Series and we did the same rooting and gouging there. It’s just part of the deal. Some days it goes your way and some days it doesn’t. However, I feel confident we’ll be ready to go when we go back to Martinsville in the fall because we were fast last weekend and I’ve got some laps under my belt there now. I tend to race well on the short tracks like Martinsville and I think my dirt racing experience is a huge benefit where this is concerned. Speaking of the dirt car, I immediately left Martinsville and went to 311 Speedway and won my class race, which was pretty cool.

Once again, I’ve never been to Nashville, so I’ll go to Kevin Harvick and some of the other veteran drivers in the Truck Series for information about the track, such as where the lifting points are. I have a racing simulator at home that I use all the time to prepare for races, so I’ll use that and also watch videos from previous Nashville races. This is something I’ve been doing all year and it seems to be paying off. My crew chief, Danny Stockman, and I study the DVDs - every lap and every caution - and study how races played out and what we can do to avoid the mistakes others made. Furthermore, I think my dirt racing helps keep my skills sharp in the truck. As you can see, we try to go to the track as prepared as we can and learn from practice when we get there.

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my first three Truck Series races this season. It’s a fun series but also a very competitive one. And as a rookie, I am not expecting my first Truck win to come in the fourth race of the year, but it sure would be awesome to win the guitar at Nashville. I love country music and taking that unique trophy home would mean the world to me and the Bass Pro Shops team.

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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Austin Dillon

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