Austin Dillon (Left) competes in a truck owned by his grandfather, Richard Childress (Right). (Photo: LAT Photographic)

Austin and Ty — despite being so competitive — do have a lot in common. The hand-eye coordination that makes them so strong at skeet shooting isn’t in short supply in the Dillon family. Despite their heritage — their father raced motorcycles before he could ride a bike, to say nothing of their grandfather’s influence — both were late arrivals to racing. Each was talented enough in stick-and-ball sports that Mike didn’t think they’d ever give it up.

Austin made an appearance in the Little League World Series in 2002 and was a captain of his high school basketball team. And today, he maintains that he was actually best at soccer.

Ty, meanwhile, came within a few outs of a World Series berth and played football.

“They had their taste of all their sports. We thought they would wind up doing that,” Mike says. “I thought Austin would play baseball at college. But then, they got the bug. Made a little Bandolero test at Charlotte and that’s what started this.”

He is, of course, referring to his sons’ burgeoning driving careers.

Austin, three years removed from his first start in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series, is making the adjustment to the Truck Series look easy. He won two Camping World Truck Series races and won the series rookie of the year award in 2010.

Ty, meanwhile, is making noise at short tracks across the Southeast. The weekend after shooting skeet for this story, he scored his first K&N Pro Series victory at Gresham Motorsports Park in Georgia.

Despite the success, however, both boys are still full-time students, juggling lives at the track and in the classroom.

Ty is a senior in high school. Austin, meanwhile, is a sophomore at nearby High Point University.

Needless to say, life without school would be a lot easier.

“I have to do most of my studying at night,” Austin says. “I really can’t study at the track so that means I have to do it during the week. And then when it’s the weekend, that’s when I want to see my friends. It’s hard to juggle my friends, school and racing sometimes.”

But their father won’t even countenance the idea.

Mike Dillon, pictured here with driver Jeff Burton, is thankful for the opportunity to help his sons in their racing careers. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

“I did not go to college. It’s one of my bigger regrets,” Mike Dillon says. “I actually went for two years. I should have finished.

“That’s why they don’t have a choice.”

Does he worry about overloading his boys?

“I think all kids at that age need more to do. I think they can handle it,” he says. “We have to work hard at it. But it keeps them focused because they don’t have a choice. It’s like Denny Hamlin with a bad knee or an athlete that gets hurt but then has one of his best games or best races.”

Fortunately, Austin only has classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays and Ty has worked to get ahead on his senior year, giving him a relatively relaxed course load.

And regardless, it sounds like Mike worries more about racing success affecting their schooling than the opposite.

“Austin has two more years,” he says. “The pressure is going to be when Austin starts thinking, ‘Well, I don’t really need to do [college] anymore.’ If he continues to progress, that could happen. But when you get that education, you learn a lot more about life.”

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