RACING A LEGENDS CAR… A DREAM COME TRUE

Lessons in Racing and Emotion

By Matthew Dillner

(Executive Editor’s Note:  The views expressed in this column are the views and opinions of the author of the article.  His views are not necessarily those of LegendsNation.com, its sponsors or other contributors.)

As a person who dreamed of racing since he was old enough to walk, getting the chance to do so has literally been a dream-come-true.  I’ve gone to races with my family all my life.  When I was a kid, I didn’t go to camp or do the things other children did; I spent my summer in the back of my dad’s truck chasing races.  I doodled racecar stuff inside books at school.  I did book reports on Richard Petty and AJ Foyt and even had a zippered pencil pouch proudly dawning my favorite Modified driver, Charlie Jarzombek’s car on it.  I’ve always been ALL about racing and have daydreamed for years of getting behind the wheel.

Then one spring night in 2005, at a company get-together in Concord, my brother Bob sat pal and co-worker Jeremy Troiano and I down and to tell us we would be racing this summer.  Bob provided us the opportunity to race in the Legends Semi-Pro division at the Summer Shootout Series.

Boy did I learn a lot about myself and also about the sport that I love.

It all kind of sunk in when I went up to Mike and Andrew Rogers’ shop one day to scale the car. I was getting so excited.  The anticipation was killing me.  Jeremy and I were to split the driving duties but thanks to family genes, and being a big guy, we couldn’t swap back and forth week-to-week because of us having such different body types (Jeremy is a little guy).  So I took the seat for the first five weeks.

I came into that opening weekend with very little racing experience.  So just getting seat-time was key.  I tested the car at Concord Motorsport Park a week earlier and felt real comfortable turning competitive laps at speed.

I took that confidence to the ¼ on the front-stretch of Lowe’s Motor Speedway for the Summer Shootout.  The confidence disappeared real quickly after that first week.  Although I had an unbelievable support group of family and friends, it was hard not to get down about not doing well.

There is just a little bit of a height difference between Matthew Dillner (left) and Jeremy Troiano (right).

Matthew Dillner strapping in for action.

To say the least, racing in the Semi-pro division was a humbling experience.  Not that I went in to the deal feeling cocky, but I had visions of much more success than what actually ended up happening.  With a ton of power, and a short wheel base, you can ask any driver out there and they will tell you how hard these cars are to wheel around a flat bull-ring like Lowe’s Motor Speedway.

The Semi-Pro division is one of the most competitive out there so just making a race is an accomplishment.  In the five weeks that I raced, they consistently sent 20 to 30 cars home each night after qualifying.  With that being said, I was usually in the B or C-main and was usually one of the cars loading up early on the trailer.

The first (and only) race I made in those five weeks was one of the highlights of my Legends experience… at least how I got into the race was!  During the heat race, a caution flag created a green-white-checker finish.  At the time I sat 10th and had to make the top-six to transfer to the main event.  When they flashed the choose-card, where you can choose the inside or outside groove on the restart, I chose the high side to maybe pick up a spot. When the green flag dropped we flew into turn-one.  All of a sudden, there was big trouble; cars crashed and scattered everywhere.  I went high and narrowly avoided the wreck.  A car that had spun just past the cluster rolled backward and just made contact with my left front tire.  The contact launched me airborne. I remember looking out the front-screen of the car

and seeing the track, then blue sky, then the track again.  The car slammed down so hard I swore something had to be broken, but when I landed I hit the gas and took off.  When I came around they were throwing the checkered flag.  I counted the cars in front of me and realized I was sixth.  I will be honest with ya, I actually screamed in excitement in the car.  When I pulled in I tried to contain that joy and just show a simple-calm smile, but inside I felt like celebrating as if I scored a Stanley-Cup winning goal!

That joy was quickly replaced with frustration during the feature event that night.  I always knew racing was a roller-coaster of emotions, but I had never experienced that from behind the wheel.  I learned that summer night about how emotions can get the best of you and show the worst of you.

Only a few laps in to my first Legends feature, I got together with Patrick McVay’s #33 Kentucky Fried Chicken car.  He said I came down on him, I thought he turned me.  But while sitting spun, I thought to myself, no big deal. It’s my first race and I have to expect to get bumped around a little.  So with that being said, I didn’t get mad about it at all.

Because of the spin, I was a lap down. So I raced around toward the back of the field and made sure that I kept the car clean and didn’t get into any more trouble.  I just wanted to finish.  With two-laps-to-go, I had a car on my tail.  I knew he wasn’t a lap-down so I decided to let my car drift high in the center of turns-three and four and let him slip by coming to the white flag. Instead of slipping by he slammed into me and shot my car into the front stretch wall real hard.  The leaders came around and raced to the finish with my driver’s door was exposed and vulnerable.  That even got my temper going more.

I got out of the car pretty steamed.  Some little kids came up to the fence and asked me if I was ok.  I thought that was so cute.  I remember being in that same position and on that side of the fence during my childhood.  A brief smile came across my face.  Then one of the kids reminded me how I was wronged and said ‘that guy put you in wall.’

I hopped in the tow truck and took the long, dark ride back to the garage area.  On the ride, we approached the car that had sent me into the fence.  I leaned over and yelled out the right-side window of the tow-truck.  “What the hell was that about?” I said.   Some of the members of their team proceeded to use hand gestures to entice me to come over and talk about it.  When they dropped my car off at our stall, we surveyed the damage and my guys made sure I was ok. 

Just when they weren’t looking, I took off running.  It was like something out of an old comedy show. Picture a 270 pound man, angrily running through a pit area.  For all those who know me, you know that I quite possibly may be one of the slowest people on the planet.  But some good ol’ adrenaline made it so that two of our quick little guys, Jeremy and Derek, couldn’t even catch me.  When I got over there (slightly out of breath) my brother met me to make sure I didn’t do anything that I would later regret.  A heated discussion ensued, but of course, no punches were thrown.

Matthew Dillner racing the #51 Legends. (photo by Penny Holder)

On the way back, Patrick McVay decided to stop me to tell me that I was wrong and had come down across his nose.  He caught me just 20 seconds after the argument with the other driver, which was not good timing on his part.  I laced into McVay and yelled at him pretty good as well.

When I got back to our pit, my guys did a great job in calming me down.  But then something happened that sincerely changed me.  I looked over and saw that my two nieces, Meghan and Kaitlyn, and my young nephew Blaise had witnessed my overflow of emotion.  I honestly felt embarrassed. I asked my brother if he would walk me over so I could apologize to McVay and his crew.   At the time, they didn’t want to hear it, but I wanted him to know that I recognized how wrong I was and that I truly was sorry.  It took a handful of weeks, but Patrick started talking with me again and now we are cool.

The experience made me realize how important it is to control yourself.  I wanted to do good in racing.  I wanted it so bad that my emotions ran real high.  I had spent most of my life dreaming of racing and wanted to be good at it.  But hey, Rome wasn’t built in a day.  I needed to just focus on having fun.  Racing should be fun.  Not to say you shouldn’t let any emotions show, because there’s nothing wrong with expressing yourself, but it should be done in a controlled manner.

During the last week of racing, my dad, a former racer himself and a hero of mine, made the trip from Long Island with my mother to watch me race.  The car I was driving was #51, the same number he raced with.  It’s a family number.  It meant the world to me that I do good in front of him.  Well, I tried too hard in my heat race and ended up getting in a wreck.  We fixed the car and I ran real well in the B-main.  I was in a transfer spot when the white-flag came out.  The car behind me was in a transfer spot as well, but for some reason decided to run into the back of me and push me up into the hot-dog stand.   I lost a few spots due to the contact and did not transfer to the main event.

I was mad again.  I passed a few cars on my way to the pit area entrance so I could get near the guy who hit me and tell him what I

thought of his move.  When we got into the garage area, my brother talked to him and told him he was wrong for doing what he did.  I pulled the car into our stall and stayed in the car to cool off for a bit.  I thought back to the other week and decided to handle it more maturely this time.  The funny thing was, when I got out I had to yell to my father to come back because ironically enough, he was on his way down to the driver’s pit to tell him what he thought.  The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.  I got a chuckle out of that. 

All in all, the experience driving a Legends car was an amazing ride.  I didn’t have the best car out there and I am not the best or most experienced driver.  But, I did learn how to race and how to control my emotions.  Racing the Summer Shootout taught me how to be more than just a racer; it taught me how to be more of a man.

Dillner isn't used to being on this side of the camera.

At the end of the day, Dillner learned a lot about Legends racing.  (photo by Penny Holder)