When one is making his first NASCAR Sprint Cup Series start at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway, where a handful of far more experienced drivers are just five races away from potentially winning the elusive Sprint Cup championship, the words of Pro Football Hall of Famer Vince Lombardi are prescient.
“The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary.”
“The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will.”
“The measure of who we are is what we do with what we have.”
Lombardi was a legendary motivator, and his words remain so. Austin Dillon, interim driver of the No. 14 Bass Pro Shops/Mobil 1 Chevrolet SS for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR), will take those words to heart as the 23-year-old makes his Talladega debut in only his 12th career Sprint Cup start.
A particular Lombardi line resonates most with Dillon as he prepares to board the 200 mph freight train that is racing around the 2.66-mile Talladega oval: “Practice doesn’t make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect.”
While Dillon is a regular in the NASCAR Nationwide Series, his eyes are set on advancing to the elite Sprint Cup Series, where racing at the voluminous and daunting Talladega Superspeedway happens twice a year. There’s a first time for everything, and for Dillon, his first Sprint Cup race at Talladega comes Sunday in the Camping World RV Sales 500.
A two-week break in the Nationwide Series schedule allows Dillon to further his education in the nuances of restrictor-plate racing, where horsepower-choked engines require drivers to draft in peloton fashion at speeds approaching 200 mph. It’s a science that is learned only through experience, and the practice Dillon gets this weekend will make him better for future starts at Talladega and its restrictor-plate sibling, Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway.
Dillon does not enter Talladega totally green. He’s raced at Talladega on four previous occasions, with a pair of starts in the Nationwide Series and NASCAR Camping World Truck Series. In all, Dillon has three top-10 finishes with a best result of seventh in the 2011 Truck Series race. He’s led a total of 23 laps in three of the four races and, most importantly, completed every lap available to him.
What Dillon has at Talladega is opportunity, something Lombardi valued greatly. With a strong work ethic, an unbowed will and a racecar that typically is wheeled by three-time Sprint Cup champion Tony Stewart, Dillon has all the tools Lombardi deemed necessary for success.
Perfect practice does indeed make perfect, and in 188 laps on Sunday, Dillon could very well find what 10 other drivers have found in their first Sprint Cup start at Talladega – victory lane.
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