{"id":17365,"date":"2018-05-18T19:25:50","date_gmt":"2018-05-19T00:25:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=17365"},"modified":"2018-05-18T19:25:50","modified_gmt":"2018-05-19T00:25:50","slug":"austin-dillon-is-enthusiastic-about-his-all-star-debut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2018\/05\/18\/austin-dillon-is-enthusiastic-about-his-all-star-debut\/","title":{"rendered":"Austin Dillon is enthusiastic about his All-Star debut"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service<\/em><\/p>\n

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – You would be hard-pressed to find a driver more optimistic or more confident than Richard Childress Racing’s Austin Dillon<\/strong> this week at Charlotte Motor Speedway<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Austin Dillon, driver of the #3 DOW Chevrolet. (Photo by Jared C. Tilton\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

There\u2019s a new race format for Saturday\u2019s Monster Energy NASCAR All-Star Race<\/a> (6 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) and for the first time ever, a restrictor-plate on the race cars \u2013 however both competitive twists seemed to only encourage the 28-year old from nearby Lewisville, North Carolina, who will be making his All-Star race debut.<\/p>\n

Dillon has good reason to smile. His first career win came at Charlotte Motor Speedway last May in the Coca-Cola 600 and his second career win came in February\u2019s season-opening Daytona 500, a restrictor-plate race.<\/p>\n

So for the first time, Dillon \u2013 the driver of the No. 3 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 – doesn\u2019t have to try to race his way into the big show, he\u2019s in it and he\u2019s ready to go.<\/p>\nhttp:\/\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/CMSAS_AustinDillon_051818.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

\u201cIt feels great,” Dillon said smiling. \u201cI remember coming here the last couple years and worrying about getting through in the Open. Now I don\u2019t have to worry about that.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd with the new package I think it\u2019s anybody\u2019s race to win really. We\u2019re going to go hard and see if we can bring home a million dollars.”<\/p>\n

\"\"

Monster Energy NASCAR Cup series driver Austin Dillon. (Photo by Chris Graythen\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

Weather hampered some on-track activity and preparation time Friday, but Dillon said he was looking forward to the four-segment, 80-lap race. And being new to the show isn\u2019t a bad thing. There has been only one repeat winner in the last 20 years of the event – Jimmie Johnson has won four times \u2013 so if the trend continues, Dillon feels he\u2019s got as good a shot as anyone.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s going to be intense,” Dillon predicted. \u201cI only made like about three-quarters of a lap before it started raining [on Friday].<\/p>\n

\u201cThe draft will be big,” he acknowledged. \u201cCars in front of you, you\u2019ll go a lot faster.\u2026 I think it\u2019s going to be awesome, it\u2019s going to be what the All-Star race is supposed be, a wild mess. That will probably happen Saturday night and with the smaller amount of practice we have will even intensify that. We\u2019ll see what we can do.”<\/p>\n

Dillon started on the pole for his very first Open race \u2013 the All-Star qualifier, in 2014 and turned in his best finish \u2013 runner-up. And it is noteworthy, Dillon has finished every single lap in the Open races he ran, a not so easy feat in the non-points, more frantic win-at-all-costs style of the race.<\/p>\n

Dillon\u2019s victory in the 600 last year certainly makes Charlotte a track where he feels particularly comfortable. And getting a chance to race in one of the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series\u2019 biggest events is a welcome reward.<\/p>\n

This year, 17 drivers are already eligible to compete in the All-Star event and four more will be added following The Open \u2013 the three stage winners and the winner of the Fan Vote.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there will be some really aggressive driving out there,” Dillon predicted with a smile. \u201cI think everyone will put it on the line when it comes down to it.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – You would be hard-pressed to find a driver more optimistic or more confident than Richard Childress Racing’s Austin Dillon this week at Charlotte Motor Speedway. There\u2019s a new race format for Saturday\u2019s Monster Energy NASCAR All-Star Race (6 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17367,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[322,233,16],"class_list":["post-17365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-austin-dillon","tag-charlotte-motor-speedway","tag-nascar"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/DillonA-2018MENCS-CarShot.jpg?fit=4072%2C2711&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-4w5","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17365"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17365\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17370,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17365\/revisions\/17370"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}