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- Car or Driver
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- Rennsport VII
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ARCA Notes From Lucas Oil Raceway
- Updated: July 28, 2011
ARCA Ansell Protective Gloves 200 winner Ty Dillon and runner-up Ryan Blaney form a combination to watch as they climb the stock car ladder in pursuit of NASCAR fame and fortune in the coming years.
Dillon, whose pedigree traces back to grandfather Richard Childress and father Mike Dillon, is only 18 years-old, but has scored six series’ wins in 2011 driving the Childress Chevrolet for grandpa. “Having the family here was cool,” said Dillon who was congratulated by grandpa and dad in Victory Lane at Lucas Oil Raceway Thursday night. “Patience and maturity are the keys to this team. I’m glad to win in Indiana- there’s so much racing history here. I’m learning to be patient in these longer races.”
Ty revealed that, because he has raced so much in the south, he’s not very familiar with tracks like LOR, and has used computer simulators to make “thousands and thousands of virtual laps” to familiarize himself with unfamiliar circuits.
Dillon also tested a Camping World Truck Series mount at Pikes Peak Int. Raceway recently, and will make his series’ debut later this season: likely at Kentucky and perhaps Loudon.
Ryan Blaney,17, is another young driver, making his way from quarter-midgets to the ARCA Series and beyond. The son of Sprint Cup veteran Dave Blaney, Ryan was runner-up to Ty Dillon at LOR in only his second ARCA start.
Dave, and brother Dale Blaney, have a driving history that goes back to winged sprint cars, and Ryan had thoughts of following that career path. “I wanted to do it, but living in North Carolina didn’t provide places to race sprints. And to go up north to run them wasn’t practical”, said the young Blaney who filled his budding career with Legends cars, quarter midgets, and more recently, super late models on southern dirt tracks when he was fourteen. “He’s too far down his career path in late models to go to sprint cars,” said father Dave while trying to cool his son down after a hot 200 laps at LOR.
Lucas Oil Raceway Notes:
• USAC midget pilot Dakoda Armstrong finished fourth in the 200 lap ARCA run, and has come to a crossroad in his young racing career. “I’m following two (career) paths right now, but I’ll be doing five truck series races this year and a full season next year. Right now I’m out of midgets.”
• A Lucas Oil Raceway official noted that with NASCAR moving its Nationwide Series event to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 2012, that LOR has also dropped NASCAR’s Camping World Truck Series from their 2012 calendar. Look for ARCA to replace the NNS there in 2012 during Kroger Speedweek.
• Former Wisconsin “Cheesehead” John Close, who left the Frozen Tundra for North Carolina a number of years ago, now does PR and marketing for another young ARCA prospect, Max Gresham, of Griffin, GA. Gresham finished 11th Thursday in his Gresham and Associates Toyota owned by Cathy Venturini. Author Close is also working on a deal to produce his third racing book.
Paul Gohde heard the sound of race cars early in his life.
Growing up in suburban Milwaukee, just north of Wisconsin State Fair Park in the 1950’s, Paul had no idea what “that noise” was all about that he heard several times a year. Finally, through prodding by friends of his parents, he was taken to several Thursday night modified stock car races on the old quarter-mile dirt track that was in the infield of the one-mile oval -and he was hooked.
The first Milwaukee Mile event that he attended was the 1959 Rex Mays Classic won by Johnny Thomson in the pink Racing Associates lay-down Offy built by the legendary Lujie Lesovsky. After the 100-miler Gohde got the winner’s autograph in the pits, something he couldn’t do when he saw Hank Aaron hit a home run at County Stadium, and, again, he was hooked.
Paul began attending the Indianapolis 500 in 1961, and saw A. J. Foyt’s first Indy win. He began covering races in 1965 for Racing Wheels newspaper in Vancouver, WA as a reporter/photographer and his first credentialed race was Jim Clark’s historic Indy win.Paul has also done reporting, columns and photography for Midwest Racing News since the mid-sixties, with the 1967 Hoosier 100 being his first big race to report for them.
He is a retired middle-grade teacher, an avid collector of vintage racing memorabilia, and a tour guide at Miller Park. Paul loves to explore abandoned race tracks both here and in Europe, with the Brooklands track in Weybridge England being his favorite. Married to Paula, they have three adult children and two cats.
Paul loves the diversity of all types of racing, “a factor that got me hooked in the first place.”