Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports
Candidly, it’s been over half a decade since Ty Dillon has regularly raced near the front of a field and changing that is so much of what his decision to return to the Craftsman Truck Series full-time with Rackley WAR amounted to.
Now 31, Dillon hasn’t won a NASCAR race at all since 2014 in the Xfinity Series and he just wants to get back to racing at a competitive level.
Speaking to SiriusXM NASCAR Radio on Friday after the news was made official, Dillon articulated the move as something of a reset after spending two frustrating Cup Series seasons at Petty GMS and Spire Motorsports respectively.
“It’s been awhile since I’ve competed in the Truck Series but I was very successful there,” Dillon told the station. “So for me, at this stage of my career, I want to get back to winning races and battling for championships and getting that confidence back.
“I still want to run Cup races. I feel like every race car driver wants to compete at the highest level but to go back and race for a team that is new and hungry, wanting to get to that next level of winning races, and hopefully I can be the driver to take them there.”
The conversation made mention of John Hunter Nemechek choosing to return to the Truck Series in 2021 and 2022 before racing Xfinity in 2023 in advance of making it back to Cup in a more competitive situation at Legacy Motor Club.
Carson Hocevar is making the move from Trucks directly to Spire.
Basically, Dillon says this is also an opportunity to validate the belief in himself that he can compete for wins and championships if given a commensurate situation.
“The difference in the Truck Series and Xfinity Series up to the Cup Series has changed over the past couple of years,” Dillon said. “There isn’t a huge difference between the Truck Series and Xfinity in my opinion, as far as competition level and getting in and out of the Cup car.
“There were a lot of options available starting the off-season and knowing I wasn’t going to return to Spire Motorsports. I just wanted to figure out what was going to be the best for me, and where I wanted to go.
“For me, it’s been awhile since I’ve been in something that allows me to win every single week in any of the series and I wanted to get back to that. Recently, there’s been a successful model of Truck Series drivers going back to the Cup Series in the last couple of years …
“Three years ago, I didn’t even have a full-time ride and I was bouncing around trying to race anything I could get my hands of just to compete at the highest levels of NASCAR. To have the option to run for a team like Rackley WAR is very exciting and I think the sky is the limit for what we can do this year. Just putting my name and Rackley WAR at the top of the list of teams to beat every week is exciting and gives me a lot of motivation for this year and going to have some fun doing it.”
If Ty Dillon ever wanted to quit
“In transparency, my wife is my biggest cheerleader and my best friend, and we’ve had a lot of those conversations over the years. I’ve been doing this, the top levels of NASCAR for almost 13 years now. There are times where it’s the world’s greatest job but it’s also a constant grind. It’s a matter of not getting too emotionally high or too emotionally low. There are a lot of things you go through as a Cup driver. The past two Cup seasons, I’m grateful for those opportunities, but it can beat you up too. I want to have joy and enjoy the moments. Running up front is why we compete. My goal as a driver is to win races and championships. Your ultimate goal is to do that in the Cup Series but you also want to win and be up front in whatever you’re in. I’ve had those conversations with my wife and she continues to motivate me and believe in me. I have a lot of great fans and friends who support me. They deserve to see me up front. They have supported me since I was really young in this sport. I’ve got two young kids and my daughter asks every week, ‘when are you going to bring a trophy home’ and I tell her I’ll have her one soon at the house and hopefully we stack some up for Oakley and Kaptan. He’s getting old enough too, where he’s obsessed with racing and its motivation for me to get up front and win some races. I want to do that at the Cup Series but to do it with Rackley WAR in the Truck Series is an honor and I’m excited for all the things ahead of us.”
Losing a winning mindset in recent seasons
“There are a lot of plusses to being a full-time Cup Series driver no matter what car you’re in. The amount of laps and experience and seat time, racing the best of the best, that’s irreplaceable. At the same time, there is something to be said about what happens when you’re not in a car where you are expected to win every single weekend. You start to doubt (if you will win again) or how it will happen. As a driver, you have to think you can win every weekend and if you get stuck thinking ‘a win this weekend is a top-20’ that is not a mindset you want to get stuck in as a driver. Sometimes, you just having a reset and getting back into that winning mindset is really helpful. You get into that mindset and we’ve seen guys go back down and come back up, and get put right back at the top of the list and remember what you can do. There is a difference between running top-5 in any series and top-20 in Cup, even if you’re doing some of the best work of your career, but you don’t get the recognition for it. There is a balance there and it’s something I thought a lot about. I think this going to give me an opportunity and recognition, and take Rackley WAR to the next level. They want to be a winning organization as well.”
Was RCR an option?
“It’s a tough question and it’s been one I get all the time because I ran with RCR full-time all the way through to the Xfinity Series. I haven’t run with them full-time since then. It’s definitely tricky. I had some situations come up this offseason that might have blocked me at RCR and who is to say I wouldn’t run some limited Cup races there? We’re still working on a schedule. My grandfather has been instrumental in my career, whether I’ve raced for him or not, supporting me and doing what he can. At the same time, he has to run a successful business. He’s not an owner who has other business that supports RCR. RCR has to run and make money on its own and he has to find money to run it the right way. I totally respect that, especially as I get older and have a better business mindset for my own future. There’s a lot of hard decisions that have to be made there but he also does everything in his power to help. There wll be some level of RCR support with me driving in another Chevrolet. They are going to do everything they can to help us. It’s just challenging. Yu never know. Maybe some day in the future I would love to race with my grandfather and maybe things will line up. It just seems like my timeline and their’s haven’t lined up perfectly. It’s not ill will or anything like that.”
Crew chief?
Dillon says he knows who is crew chief will be with the departure of Chad Kendrick from Rackley WAR to an Xfinity Series team. Dillon says the team will announce that later but it’s someone who he has worked alongside before but never as a driver – crew chief combination.
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.