Racing News
SEVIERVILLE, TENN. – After a long winter’s wait, 12-year-old Dylan Presnell finally had the birthday that let him start racing his Legends car. Only five races into the new season, he scored his first win in the No. 83 Legends car.
After several years of racing in Bandoleros, the straight-As honor student rising seventh-grader planned to race in Lowe’s Motor Speedway’s Winter Heat series for Legends cars but insurance regulations prevented a move to the bigger, faster cars until after his twelfth birthday. That birthday came just in time for him to race in front of the vast crowd on Coca Cola 600 pole night at Lowe’s Motor Speedway. “I remember I got spun out again,” said Presnell. “They put you right to the back,” so he had a finish he doesn’t even try to remember.
A pair of races at Nashville Speedway yielded another forgettable race, then a sixth-place in the second attempt there. “During the race I got on the throttle too hard and spun out,” recalled Presnell. In spite of the spin, he battled his way back to sixth place with seven laps left in the race and held that position to the end.
The race at Kentucky was a two day event, where on the first day, Dylan had a car spin out in front of him. “I thought I would be able to pass him, but he came down in front of me,” reported Presnell. On the second day, he was in sixth place when a car spun in front of him with only a pair of laps left to race. “I don’t care,” he said about those finishes. “I don’t keep track of the ones I don’t like.”
All these races led to the first race of the Summer Shootout series at Lowe’s Motor Speedway. “We won it,” is his simple description. “We stayed out of trouble in that one. There were about three wrecks I avoided, just by holding back. We made it up to second place and the first place car spun out.
“Then, Trevor Farbo and I were battling it out across the line and I beat him by about a half a car length” added Presnell.
Presnell’s reputation as a racer has already led to an invitation to make public appearances. A neighboring school has asked the seventh-grader to take his race car to campus to show other students that it is possible to have an exciting life and still be a good student. Dylan is proof that scholarship and racing can co-exist and even complement each other.
In addition to his INEX Legends car race career, young Presnell is racing in the Allison Legacy series, with famed NASCAR racer Donnie Allison as his driving coach. The next race on that calendar is at Myrtle Beach Speedway, on June 23.