Ross Robinson’s top-10 finish in Saturday’s Super Bowl of Racing finale shouldn’t come as a surprise. Over the winter, he acquired and assimilated the resources he’s felt he’s needed all along to be successful.

Among that are the hires of two crewmen — Luke Eller, whose brother Mark works for Jimmy Owens, and Michael Roach, who served as Tyler Erb’s tire specialist at Best Performance Motorsports last year —  to carry the maintenance load carried by himself and wife Amanda last year.

Next is he’s bonded with Mark Richards of Rocket Chassis and, like Rocket1 Racing and Dennis Erb Jr. have done, made the switch to FOX Shox. Finally, this week at Georgia-Florida Speedweeks, he has Hall of Fame driver Rick Eckert as his cornerman; the York, Pa., veteran bolstering the Dutch Star Motorsports team with his wealth of knowledge and sheer presence.

That said, morale is rightly higher than ever for Robinson and company.

“From leaving here last year to leaving here (on Saturday), it’s a total 180,” Robinson said. “Last year, we didn’t know what to do. I was just lost. I was lost all the way through Speedweeks. Last night, we should’ve run second (in the heat race) but got ran over. Luckily we got in there through the B main and were able to charge on up through there.”

Last year through the first weekend, he finished 20th, 19th, and 23rd at Golden Isles. Now, racing clearheaded and free-and-easy, he has finishes of 14th and 10th to show for.

“We have a core group of people helping us that has took a lot of the burden off Amanda and myself to figure out how to just do it to where it allowed me to focus on driving,” Robinson said. “And having Rick down here for Florida, there’s no downside to that. Like, he’s always been a good friend of mine and has always helped Amanda and I, anyway he could. It was an opportunity for him to come down to us, and I’m grateful he did. To have someone like him in your corner, you can’t put a price tag on that.”

National Dirt Late Model Hall of Fame driver Rick Eckert in the pits at Golden Isles Speedway. (Heath Lawson)

Robinson had a chance to start from the pole of Saturday’s main event, but finishing second in the opening heat race lined him up seventh in the 60-lap feature. A few missteps in the early laps slid him back to 10th by lap six, but he settled in from there, pulling his weight among the best.

“I made a mistake right there in the beginning. And lost a couple spots,” Robinson said. “We were able to maintain and run 10th. Last year, I had one top 10 for the whole year in a full-field race. We got one in the first weekend, so we’re doing OK.”

For Robinson, not taking a provisional through opening weekend that featured 17 of the top 25 drivers from the final DirtonDirt.com poll of the 2023 season last November is a victory of consolation he relishes.

“It’s all about the little wins right now,” Robinson said. “We’re just trying to build things back up to where they need to be. We’re off to a good start. There’s a lot of really, really good things going on right now and it has me very excited for this year.”

How does Robinson keep this going?

“You just keep digging. If you sleep, if you get complacent, it’ll bite you in the ass every time.”

Robinson is aware that off nights will happen, too, and when they occur, the key is to stay encouraged.

“At some point, I’m going to have to take a provisional. I mean, everybody does. Not everybody can be perfect. It can go bad. At Speedweeks, you have the best of the best every single night. So, you have to go to bed and enjoy your good night, wake up the next morning and forget about it; go back to work. All you have to do is keep working hard. And work your ass off."