3 Weeks til Nationals -Interview with Dustin Woods
Three weeks out from the Racesaver IMCA Sprint Nationals, and we head back to the Lone Star State to speak to 34 year-old Dustin Woods from Forney Texas, who is bringing his #00 sprinter to compete for the win in the Sunday evening “Big Show”.
Q: How long have you been racing in the Racesaver class?
Dustin: I started the first year that they had the Racesavers down here. I think it was 2009.
Q: What do you think of the Racesaver class in general?
Dustin: I think it’s the greatest deal out there!! Down here in Texas we have the Factory Stocks. The way it is in the Factory Stocks, a decent shock package is around $1100. It just blows my mind that to be competitive you have to spend that kind of money on shocks, carburetors, and stuff. And I’m over here racing a car that I’ve been running for four years; same motor, same wing, same everything 4 years later! And I don’t have near that kind of money in it.
Q: Do you like the severe tech measures that they have for the Racesavers?
Dustin: That’s awesome. I really enjoy that. I like the motor rules and all; I just don’t care for the nose wing rule, because I tend to bend front axles a lot; so, if I bend one, I fail the front wing tech. That’s the only rule that I don’t like.
Q: Is this your first trip to the Nationals?
Dustin: No, I’ve made the trip twice before; so it will be my third time there.
Q: What do you think of the event?
Dustin: It’s the nicest event that I’ve ever been to, sprint car wise, by far! I’ve never seen anything so organized, with the officials, push vehicles and things of that nature.
Q: Have you enjoyed your experiences at the Nationals?
Dustin: I was ecstatic last year when I made the feature. I had to race every day just to make it, but my highlight of the whole week was Friday. I ran second fastest time, so I had a smile on my face for a week and a half! My name and “fast time” do NOT go hand in hand. The best part of it was that I didn’t even know
anything about it, but someone came up and said “Did you hear your name called?”. I said “WHAT??”. He said “They announced that you had second fast time!”. I told them they had to be lying, but later on I got confirmation of it. So; any time somebody brings it up, that’s the highlight of the whole deal.
Q: There are a lot of Racesaver racers down around where you’re from, right?
Dustin: Oh yeah! I have more laps in a Racesaver sprint car than anybody else in the country; I promise. I’ve competed for the National points championship since it started, so I raced probably an average of 50 nights a year. I decided not to chase it this year. I teamed up with another guy last year, and since we teamed up he shows up to drive. I take care of the cars, I maintain them and everything. It’s a lot more cost efficient to do it for two cars everywhere. I don’t have to travel nearly so much. He’s freshly married, and I’m still single. It’s nice to just do it every once in a while.
Q: Do you like the 3-day qualifying?
Dustin: Well, last year I had top points on Sunday, because I’d run tenth in both of the first qualifying days and they were taking nine each day. So I really enjoyed the fact that I had a third shot at it and finally qualified.
Q: What was it like to race against guys from all over the country?
Dustin: What I enjoyed about last year was that we had more racers from Texas than we’ve ever had. People got to see what the Texas cars are like. It’s kind of like North versus South at the Nationals, and that’s really cool to see. It makes people think “Man! These Texas guys have some things figured out!!”. But what’s really great is when you go back home and run against those same guys every week; some of them ran second or third or whatever, and every time out he was fast. But then every once in a while I can outrun them locally, and that’s pretty cool to me.
Q: What do you think of the 3-wide start to the Sunday Feature?
Dustin: Well, last year I started towards the back, so I didn’t mind it at all. I was in the middle of the last row, and had no problems. It makes it exciting for the fans. Hats off to Roger for the idea; he’s the best Racesaver operator I’ve ever been around. It’s his voice on the Raceceiver; and I didn’t know that they record
that stuff. I didn’t go to the scales, and I said “They didn’t tell me to go to the scales”, so I got DQ’ed. So, the next day Roger reviewed the tape and said “I guess I never told you to go to the scales”. So I told him “That’s all I needed to know. I feel much better now”.
Q: What did you think of the track?
Dustin: Roger doing all of that work after we had that huge storm roll through; we were knee deep in water and the next day we were racing on the track. THAT was impressive! This is the other thing that I love about Nebraska, and we’re not used to that down here. You never see a better, more consistent track than that. I did not change one thing on my car all weekend, and I guarantee you that I did more laps than anybody else at Eagle last year. I ran every race that they had! Every heat I was in, every preliminary feature, the Race of Champions, I raced them all. I think I ended up with 150 laps one night! I ran the Race of Champions, all of those other races. I don’t think I ever got out of the car. But, OH, the way that they work the track! Instead of watering the entrance to the corners, they watered the exit of the corners, and that makes it consistent every time that you go out. It makes it so much easier on people who are from out of town and not familiar with the track. Our tracks down here all are short tracks, that are dry slick and take rubber. You never see that up there.
Q: Any last thoughts that you want to pass along?
Dustin: I see you already have over 100 cars registered. I think that eventually you’ll get more cars than the Knoxville Nationals. The best way that I can describe Eagle, is it’s deceiving on video. When you watch the videos you think “Aww…it doesn’t look that big. Those banks aren’t that high. But I’ll tell you how banked it is! They have a water truck that ended up rolling over!! Plus, there’s not math involved in where you’ll be starting; which race you’ll be running in. Eagle is just the best track that I’ve ever been at, and the Nationals are the greatest event I ever saw!!