Austin Dillon – One to look for the future? – NASCAR
It is always hard when people expect a lot. For Austin Dillon, the expectation could not get any greater. Austin is the grandson of Richard Childress, who has recently been inducted into the Motorsports Hall of Fame.
Austin comes from a family of racers and while he has already outshone them on the track, he still has a long way to go to meet their stature in the game.
To add to that, he started his driving career in NASCAR in the number 3 car, which was driven by Dale Earnhardt and has not been driven in any of the three NASCAR series since his death in 2002.
To say that Austin has progressed in leaps and bounds is an understatement. He made his first appearance in a major series at Iowa Speedway in the Camping World Truck Series in 2009. He started driving full time in 2010 and won the 2010 Camping World Series
Rookie of the Year award.
In 2011, he has taken his performances to the next level and is now challenging for the Camping World Truck Series Champion. He is currently just 3 points behind James Buescher. If he wins, he will be the youngest winner of the Camping World Truck Series
Championship.
He has already won 2 races this season, with the first coming at the Nashville Superspeedway and the second came last week at the Chicagoland Speedway. He is tied with the most number of wins with Ron Hornaday, if one discounts the Chase Racers Kyle Busch
and Kevin Harvick. He also has the most poles in the series so far, with an impressive 4.
With such an impressive resume, it is hard to ignore the potential Austin presents and he has presented grandfather Richard Childress with a huge dilemma. Should Austin win the truck championship this year, Richard Childress will be tempted to move forward
his expected timeline on which he expects Austin to join the Sprint Cup.
Austin is already set to make his first appearance in the Sprint Cup this year in the Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas Speedway. He is also set to drive the number 3 car in the Nationwide Series 2012 for Richard Childress Racing.
Ideally, Childress wants Austin to have two years of experience in the Nationwide Series before moving on to the Sprint Cup. There is also Austin’s brother, Ty Dillon, who is expected to take over from him in the Camping World Truck Series. Ty currently
drives in the ARCA series.
While there is little doubting Austin’s potential, he is not the only driver to exhibit potential at an early age and then get lost in the mire when they run with the big boys.
Parker Kligerman, at 19, won the pole in his first ever Nationwide Series race but has since then been on a slide which has seen him drop down to the Truck Series. Kligerman says that his confidence took a huge shot at that stage and it took him a great
time to recover from that.
Richard Childress, with all his experience, will be aware of that and has insisted that he will not push Austin into anything and he will get his chance when he is ready. To Austin’s credit, he has kept his head down and is concentrating on winning his first
Truck Series Championship.
And the chances that the two brothers will race against each other any time soon are slim since their grandfather has told them that they will not be racing in the Chase until they have graduated.
With such guidance and support, the future looks bright for the Dillon brothers. The rest of the field will be keeping their eyes on Austin as he looks set to be challenging for the Sprint Cup Championship in a couple of years.
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