NASCAR Camping World Trucks Series
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TRUCKS: Dillon Adds To RCR Legacy
Austin Dillon is the 2011 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series champion...
Tom Jensen  |  Posted November 18, 2011   Homestead, FL
There’s an old Southern saying as simple and succinct as it is true: “Blood tells.”

In the case of 2011 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series champion Austin Dillon, that’s so very true. Just 21 years of age, Dillon is the grandson of former driver and longtime NASCAR team owner Richard Childress. And this season he made “Pop-Pop” very proud indeed, showing the Childress championship drive to win.

Dillon wheeled the familiar black No. 3 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet in high style in 2012, delivering consistent front-running performances that earned him both the championship and a full-time RCR NASCAR Nationwide Series ride next year.

In 25 Truck Series races this year, Dillon won races at Nashville Superspeedway and Chicagoland Speedway, and over the final third of the season, he piled up top five after top five. In a seven-race stretch from the Chicagoland race to the penultimate race of the season at Texas Motor Speedway, Dillon posted one victory, three runner-up finishes and five top fives.

That was enough to make Dillon the youngest champion in series history and give RCR its 11th driver championship in NASCAR’s top three divisions.

Although he was the rookie of the year in 2010, Dillon’s Truck Series career got off to a rocky start, as he triggered a nine-truck crash on the first lap of the season-opening race at Daytona last year. To his credit, Dillon was a quick study and learned from his mistake.

“The first thing at Daytona, the first person to come to me when I wrecked was Carl Edwards,” Dillon said. “He told me to never quit and don't give up. It really worked out. Midway through the 2010 season we started clicking off some really good races, won our first race at Iowa, and have really progressed over the last two years, put ourselves (in position) this year to be a champion.”

And that set the stage for this year’s championship run.

“Beginning of the year at Daytona, we went into the media tour telling everybody we wanted to go out and win this championship,” said Dillon. “We had our goal. We had a good team behind us and fast trucks.”

Coming into Homestead, Dillon vowed to continue to be aggressive and not try to coast despite having a generous point lead over Johnny Sauter and James Buescher.

“The biggest thing is, I've been saying the last few weeks, you can't play defense, you have to play offense,” said Dillon. “When you start playing defense, you get wrecked. We'll try to stay up front, get a good place to run. There's places you can't put yourself in a compromising position. You go out and race these guys like we have all season.”

And that’s just what he did. Dillon fought through some handling issues to finish 10th and win the series title over Johnny Sauter and James Buescher.

“It’s unbelievable,” said Dillon. “These things don’t come often. Kevin Harvick told me to celebrate. I’m going to celebrate.”

As he should, for a job well done.

“It’s just fantastic to win a championship and watch how hard these guys worked all year and how much these guys put into it,” said team owner Childress. “To see that black 3 back in victory circle ... couldn’t be prouder.”

Tom Jensen is the Editor in Chief of SPEED.com, Senior NASCAR Editor at RACER and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. You can follow him online at twitter.com/tomjensen100.
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