Dirt to Daytona - Checking in on Travis Pastrana and the Pro West Series
Dirt to Daytona is a series of columns dedicated to grassroots and local racing. The series will lead up to Ranting and Raving’s groundbreaking coverage of the 44th Annual Snowball Derby, independent short track racing’s most prestigious event.
I was pretty race-deprived over the weekend as Sprint Cup, IndyCar and Formula One all shared an off-weekend to celebrate the Easter holiday.
The Nationwide Series and Camping World Trucks did their thing at Nashville but I entered Sunday feeling pretty unsatisfied. That was before I came across the K&N Pro West Series 3 Amigos 100 from Phoenix International Raceway on Sunday.
The racing was excellent and the broadcast presentation gave me the overall racing experience I lacked during what was an otherwise boring weekend for racing.
Find out why on the other side!
I was pleasantly surprise to hear Mike Hogewood doing play-by-play alongside Phil Parsons. Many of you at Ranting and Raving share my love of professional wrestling and Hogewood spent the past two years calling the action for Ring of Honor Wrestling on HDNet.
Hogewood was underrated in that role and did an equally excellent job in calling the Pro Series race for SPEED. I hope the duo returns for more Pro Series and ARCA races in 2011.
Greg Pursley won the race, his second consecutive at PIR, after struggling during practice and qualifying. His team had a plan and won the race on pit strategy, pitting on lap 22 before the rest of the field. According to Pursley, the victory was a total team effort.
“It’s the same car we won with here in November,” Pursley said. “We had to make it drive good and didn’t worry too heavily about how it drove in qualifying and practice. We really focused on making it drive in race trim. I can’t thank my team enough.”
Pursley won the race but sub-plots dominated the 3 Amigos Organic Blanco 100.
Ty Dillon finished fourth (started third) and was easily the most talked about driver during the broadcast.
Dillon is such an impressive prospect.
While many point to his heritage as the chief reason for his early success in major league stock car racing, the young man is not totally without talent. The chief example to this point was made on lap 17 when Dillon went three-wide with Pursley and Brennan Newberry. It was a daring, Kyle Busch-like, move and all three held firm to make it work.
It’s a testament to the talent of the three prospects that the move didn’t result in an accident.
Michael Waltrip Racing developmental driver Travis Pastrana (the former X-Games star) has a lot to learn about stock car racing. Pastrana started 10th and finished 25th but if car control any indicator, he has the talent to go as far as he wants in NASCAR.
He spent what felt like the entire race bouncing off the competition and saving the car.
While he put himself in a lot of dicey situations, Pastrana had the talent to keep it off the wall. (His race-ending accident with Mike Self was a racing accident) There’s a lot of optimism to be shared in regard to Pastrana’s stock car future.
Pastrana will compete in six Nationwide Series events for Michael Waltrip Racing.
Judging from the West Series, the future of NASCAR and stock car racing is in good hands.
