And hope for luck.
The trio enters today’s NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Mudsummer Classic (Fox Sports 1) among the drivers to beat. Dillon won the inaugural event in 2013 — NASCAR’s first race on dirt since Sept. 30, 1970 — and Larson took second. Reddick makes his Mudsummer debut.
“Myself and Austin Dillon will be the favorites again, just with our backgrounds in dirt racing,” Larson said. “Just being labeled a dirt guy makes you a favorite.”
Among their Eldora accomplishments, North Carolina’s Dillon, 24, is a two-time World 100 qualifier. California’s Reddick, 18, is a two-time qualifier in both the World and Dirt Late Model Dream. He’s also the youngest driver (16 years old) to start on the pole in the World 100.
Larson, 21 and also from California, scored the biggest accomplishment when he swept all three USAC features — midget, sprint and Silver Crown cars — in the same night at the 4-Crown Nationals in 2011.
All three will use that big-race experience tonight in front of about 25,000 spectators at Eldora and a national television audience.
“I don’t think the pressure’s ever off. You want to go back and perform,” Dillon said of winning the first Mudsummer Classic. “I feel like there’s pressure every race I go to because I want to win them all. I’m excited to go there because we have some good history there. … It’s hard to beat the inaugural, but I think it’ll be just as big.”
The race features dirt-track qualifying procedures starting with the two-lap qualifying session (5:10 p.m.). Trucks then race in one of the five 10-lap heat races (7 p.m.). Trucks not advancing to the feature go to the 15-lap Last Chance Race (8:10 p.m.) for a final shot. The 150-lap Mudsummer Classic follows. The Classic will run in segments of 60, 50 and 40 laps allowing trucks to pit after the first two segments.
Thirty-four trucks are entered and 30 make the Mudsummer Classic.
“It’s kind of cool to come to a track that I know,” said Reddick, in his first season of the Truck Series. “Every track I’ve been to up until now has been a new track for me.”
Reddick raced in both late model events on the undercard in 2013 Classic and finished third in both. He met with Sprint Cup driver Brad Keselowski at the Classic to discuss driving a truck for his Camping World team. They agreed on a two-year deal.
“A top five would be great,” Reddick said. “I’m playing for the win, but a top five would be great. We’re not looking to tear anything up. We’ll see who manages their stuff the best and makes the smartest decisions.”
Larson doesn’t think that was him in 2013. He got stuck in traffic during the second segment and Dillon took advantage for the lead he never lost.
“I think if I hadn’t made that mistake in traffic and let Austin get by maybe it would’ve been a different result,” Larson said. “The track kind of got hard to pass at the end. It was still a fun race.”
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