Dixie Shootout #1 - Nashville

We headed back to Nashville, TN for the first Dixie Shootout regional race of 2015. Dillon was all set to make his Jr. Honda debut, but Mother Nature had other ideas. The kids played and had a good time while we watched it rain, eventually resulting in the races being postponed until tomorrow.

A lot of cars show up from all over the region to try and make it into the Dixie Shootout races. One big difference between racing these as a rookie and racing in the competitive classes (like Jr. Honda) is that as a rookie, everyone makes the feature race. In the competitive classes, we have lower mains to whittle down the field for the feature race to only 10 cars. Our main goal for the regional races this year is just to be one of the cars that makes it into the feature. The competition is fierce and the Junior classes consistently have the highest car counts, so it will be a tall order but hopefully something we can manage to accomplish.

Dillon qualified 14th out of 15 cars in Jr Honda. He will start 8th in the B Main to try and race his way into the feature. His times improved from practice to qualifying, so we just hope he continues to improve each time he goes out.

In the B Main race, he put down his best times of the day! He did GREAT, probably the best he's ever looked on the track. Had some passes and just looked like he belonged out there. He also really listened to the advice his daddy gave him about changing his line, which made Ron very happy, too!

Dillon did great in his first Jr Honda B Main. We didn't transfer into the feature, but Dillon did finish 5th, which made us the X car. If another car had come out of the race before the first lap was complete, he would have gotten to go out on the track to be in the race. Unfortunately, that didn't happen, but we are so proud of this boy anyway for even having a shot against all the veteran drivers that he was up against!

It was a long day and a very long drive home after the races that night, but overall traveling to Nashville to race was totally worth it!
 

2014 Banquet

2014 was a great learning year for Dillon and we are excited to be moving up to the Jr. Honda and Jr. Animal classes for 2015. Thank you so much to Flash Products for our awesome engines! Thank you also to our chassis builder Robbie Stanley Racing, Inc. We are proud to be part of the ‪#‎BulldogStampede‬! The banquet at Great Wolf was fantastic as usual! Thank you to Mary Repko and her team for organizing the banquet, to Lola Kenney for the great job she did running the show, to Kelly Yonchuk for all she does to provide us with these gorgeous trophies, to the ladies on the yearbook committee for our amazing yearbook and driver gifts, and to everyone else who worked so hard to make the banquet such a success! THANK YOU!

2014 Carolina Fall Nationals

Dillon qualified 5th out of the 20 Blue Rookies that came to race in the Carolina Fall Nationals. That is quite an accomplishment all by itself and we are super proud of him!

Unfortunately, in the feature the cars in front of him had some issues getting the race started which resulted in the final start being single file. After that, the cars spread out and everyone pretty much just rode in their position as the race went caution free. Dillon raced hard, but there's only so much you can do in 20 7 second laps. He did his best though, and we are proud of him, as always!

So the 2014 season is over and we have officially raced our final "rookie" race. Next year we'll be heading to Jr. Honda and Jr. Animal. I'm both anxious and excited to see what it will be like racing in the competitive classes. This was definitely a learning year for all of us, often frustrating but always rewarding. We made some amazing friends and lots of fun family memories of time spent together. Dillon still has a lot to learn but when I look at the improvement he made from the start of the year to the end, I am amazed by our little guy! He accomplished a lot this year and we're looking forward to what the 2015 racing season will bring.