Show-Me State's Dillon McCowan Mixes It Up With Best At Wheatland
Show-Me State's Dillon McCowan Mixes It Up With Best At Wheatland
Dillon McCowan is a 19-year-old Late Model rookie who started his Show-Me 100 weekend in dreamlike fashion at home track Lucas Oil Speedway.
WHEATLAND, Mo. (May 27) — Dillon McCowan’s personality is far from ostentatious. His simplest self-assessment speaks to that.
“I’m a small-town kid from Urbana, Mo., who feeds cows every morning before he works on race cars,” McCowan said. “We farm … hunt … do our best to go run races. There ain’t much to us.”
The 19-year-old comes across rather mellow for his age, yet when he was caught in a dreamlike scenario in Thursday’s opener of Show-Me 100 weekend at Lucas Oil Speedway, he couldn’t suppress the raw emotion starting the night’s Cowboy Classic feature from the pole.
“It’s always been a dream to race the Show-Me 100,” McCowan told FloRacing pit reporter Ben Shelton before his tone picked up with stadium-echoing enthusiasm. “We won a heat race … come on!”
McCowan’s energy simmered down by night’s end, fading in the 45-lap feature while coming away with a sixth-place finish in a race won in flag-to-flag fashion by four-time Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series champion Jonathan Davenport. The bright side is that McCowan kept pace with drivers such as Tim McCreadie throughout the duration of the main event and adapted to the technical, slow racing conditions when he had to.
WATCH: Thursday's highlights of the Show-Me 100 weekend opener at Lucas Oil Speedway.
“We could have kept falling. … I was, like, dang I moved down and in a half of lap those guys are getting around me,” McCowan said. “I gathered my thoughts up right there and tried to battle back. You never give up, right?”
That kind of resolve has fueled optimism for the road ahead, especially Friday’s 40-lap, $6,000-to-win prelim and Saturday’s 100-lap, $50,000-to-win crown jewel, remains as lively as ever.
Growing up 20 minutes from the immaculate 3/8-mile oval he’s fairly acquainted with, McCowan’s worked nonstop over the last few years so he can put himself in situations such as Thursday: starting alongside Davenport on the front row of a Lucas Oil main event, at his home track no less.
The Late Model world may just be warming up to McCowan, but those in Wheatland have likely watched him for a good while now considering he’s a two-time modified champion at the track.
“We’ve had some success in the modified, but it was all just a steppingstone to get where I really want to be,” McCowan said. “The better I can be in all these classes, the sooner I can get here in Late Models.
“Finally, we decided it was time to make the jump to the Late Model,” he added. “I’ve been working toward driving a Late Model my entire life. That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do. It’s nice when those good runs do come. It makes you push along, for sure.”
McCowan doesn’t have many Late Model races under his belt. In fact, Thursday marked the 21st of his career in the division. But he’s made the discipline his primary focus this season after compiling more than 60 victories and four track titles in the modified between Wheatland and Midway Speedway in Lebanon, Mo. One of those victories came in the modified portion of last year’s Cowboy Classic in Wheatland.
In essence, the teenager is following a path similar of Nick Hoffman, Ricky Thornton Jr., and Ryan Gustin, three national touring drivers who were in exceptional in the modified and are now carving out success in the Dirt Late Model world.
“My dad (Charlie) compares me to them all the time. I’m like, man, I don’t know,” McCowan said. “These guys are good. Gustin, he was an animal in the modified. I was fortunate enough to watch him a lot, him and Thornton. I raced with Thornton in the modified; Gustin, too.”
Asked if he’d like to become the next Gustin or Thornton, McCowan redirected the conversation.
“No … I want to be like me. I don’t want to follow anybody’s footsteps,” McCowan said. “I want to create my own path. Well, we’re trying to anyway. We’re trying to get there one step at a time.”
In Thursday’s feature, because the outside lane had been best for starts all evening, McCowan knew he needed the smoothest start possible just to hang with Davenport from the drop of the green. Davenport not only raced into clean air with ease, but fourth-starting Tyler Bruening rocketed past McCowan on the opening lap, too.
“I tried to get as good a jump as I could,” said McCowan, who was immediately third. “When I was down there, I was trying to get (Davenport) in the first corner and slide him; or try to slow a slider on him in (turns) three and four. That top was just so good and they motored right by me. And Tyler was hauling the mail.
“I don’t know what else I could have done. I don’t have enough experience to say this is what I was going to do … or have a complete gameplan. I just knew I had to get a good jump off the bat. I thought about it. … If I was a little better, I probably would have.”
Even if McCowan timed the initial start to perfection, perhaps the opening lap slide job he badly wanted to unleash wouldn’t have been all that effective.
“He probably would have cut under me and drove back by anyway,” McCowan said.
Still, he wishes he had enough room to pull the trigger and race head-to-head with Davenport a little longer.
“I mean, he’s a badass. He proved that tonight,” McCowan said. “He keeps reproving that. He’s good. He’s one of the best in the business. Him and his team. There’s a lot of people out here. I’m just happy to get my foot stuck in the door and try to make a name for myself; get some good times with our little team we put together. We try to do what we can. I’m excited to keep going. We’re really excited for (Friday) night. I really enjoy this racetrack. I’ve raced a long time here. I’ve logged a lot of laps … a lot of laps on that cushion actually.”
This year, McCowan is banking on a pair of Longhorn Chassis to carry him through the year. Thursday’s race machine is a brand-new Longhorn that had two races on it prior to the Show-Me 100 weekend opener.
“It’s the best the car’s felt since we got it,” McCowan said. “That’s why I’m so excited about a sixth-place run. The car just feels a lot better.”
“I’m ecstatic, man. After the runs we’ve been having lately, I’m very happy with a sixth,” he added. “The car was very good. I felt very balanced all night long. We were just tight right there in the feature. I’m extremely happy with it, though.”
While he’s a first-generation racer, McCowan comes from a family that’s been involved in racing for quite some time. His late grandfather, A.D. McCowan, was a renowned dirt-track and pavement car owner in the Missouri area for three decades. He helped Carl Edwards, Jamie McMurray and the late Tony Roper build eventual careers in NASCAR through his short-track pavement modified and pavement Late Model programs.
A.D. McCowan never fielded a race car for his grandson, but in a way, he inspired the youngster to promptly start his Late Model career last year. With his health on the decline, A.D. badly wanted to see his grandson in a Late Model, so McCowan partnered with Jesse Stovall of Billings, Mo., in a three-race deal in Limited Late Models last season. A.D. died in September at age 84, but he got his wish of seeing his grandson compete in a Late Model.
“I ran those three races last year because my grandad wanted to see me race a Late Model before he died,” McCowan said.
Now McCowan looks to build upon what’s already in place and stick within the confines of his growing capabilities.
“I just have to keep the blinders on while we’re here, try to do the best I can to stay focused and not get too ahead of ourselves,” McCowan said. “I don’t think about all the people in the stands watching me or whatever. Maybe they’re not watching me. But I’m trying like heck to put on a show for them.”