NASCAR: Ty Dillon ready to make Sprint Cup debut on Sunday - MotorSportsTalk

Ty Dillon’s trying to track down Chase Elliott and Regan Smith in the NASCAR Nationwide Series championship. But this weekend at Atlanta Motor Speedway, that won’t be his only job.

In addition to running tonight’s NNS race at AMS, Dillon will also make his Sprint Cup debut Sunday night in the No. 33 Chevrolet for Circle Sport – which has a partnership with his team in the NNS, Richard Childress Racing.

Yesterday, Dillon qualified 29th for Sunday’s Oral-B USA 500. Running with the big dogs is clearly special for Dillon, who dubbed it “a huge moment for me and my career.”

But he doesn’t think that the Cup drive will detract from his NNS focus.

“I think it’s only going to be a positive for my Nationwide program to be in the Cup race this year,” said Dillon, a former winner at AMS in the Camping World Truck Series (2012). “It will slow everything down for me. I hadn’t been here in two years, and the last time I was here, I won.

“I feel like I’ve got a pretty good grip on this race track. The way our Nationwide team is performing right now, I think we have a great opportunity of winning a race and really piling on some points for this championship.”

As for how AMS became the site for his first Cup race, Dillon said that he and grandfather/boss Richard Childress got together at the beginning of the year and picked ‘four or five tracks” where they felt confident about him running well.

“[Atlanta] was one of the tracks on the list,” Dillon said. “We didn’t really talk about it very much during most of the season, and then things kind of came together. Here recently, we got the sponsorship to make things happen.”

Dillon also said that depending on sponsorship, he was hopeful to get a few more Cup starts this year.

“I know we were already planning on hopefully doing some stuff next year,” he said. “This year is kind of an open book…I think it’s wherever my grandfather feels like he can throw me in and we will have a great opportunity.”

But while his future Cup plans remain to be determined, Dillon knows what he has to do on the Nationwide side of things: Shrink the points gap between himself and the two JR Motorsports drivers, Elliott and Smith.

Two weeks ago at Mid-Ohio, a power steering problem relegated Dillon to a 19th-place finish that helped increase his deficit. Dillon recovered last weekend with a fourth at Bristol, but he’s still down 30 points in the standings to Elliott.

“I think we just have to continue to run in the Top-5, and hope for some mistakes from those guys because that is what has put us behind,” Dillon said of the situation. “We were only 12 points out two weeks ago…We have been fast everywhere we just had a couple of mechanical issues.

“We are going to continue to run up front and have opportunities to win the race like we did last week at Bristol and let those guys fold.”

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Vicki Golden has earned a career worthy of a thousand stories and 805 Beer tells at least one of them, as “Inverted Perspective” premiered March 30 on the company’s website and YouTube channel.

Golden did more to break the glass ceiling in SuperMotocross than she ever thought possible. She knows this because riders have never felt the need to explain any of her accomplishments with the disclaimer, “for a girl”.

At this point in Golden’s career, she’s been the first woman to finish top 10 in AMA Arenacross Lites, the first woman to qualify in the Fast 40 in Monster Energy AMA Supercross and the first woman to compete in freestyle Moto X competition, earning a bronze medal by doing so.

Her love for moto came from childhood while she watched her dad and brother ride. By seven she was on her bike and making waves throughout Southern California.

Golden, 30, is still madly in love with the sport and has no plans on moving away but her career is already one to talk about. 805 Beer’s film series wanted to do exactly that.

“I’m taken aback by it all,” Golden told NBC Sports about the documentary. “It’s just crazy to see your story, it’s one thing to live your life and battle everything that comes about but it’s another to just sit there and talk about it.”

805 approached Golden about the feature by asking, “Do you even realize that what you do, and your story is special?”

Golden took the question as a blank canvas to map out the highs and lows of her career and life.

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The title “Inverted Perspective” came from a brainstorming session with Dominick Russo and it highlights Golden’s outlook on the sport of SuperMotocross and her life in general.

“My whole life, my whole career was thinking differently and looking at things that shouldn’t be done and aren’t there, while being able to make a place for myself, where no one thought there should be a place,” Golden said. “It’s inspiring someone to think in different ways. It sums up my life.”

*Vicki Golden is not “fast for a girl”; she’s just fast. – 805 Beer*

While Golden is no stranger to the spotlight, this was the first time she’s been fully involved with the storytelling and creation of a feature about herself.

“It’s not like a full new experience,” Golden said. “Obviously, you get your standard questions about your upbringing and accomplishments, but I’ve never really put into perspective things that happened in my past with my dad and putting that to light. Also, certain other things that maybe got overlooked in previous interviews or films. I wanted to touch on these and Dom wanted to create a story. It’s just cool to see it come to light, it’s a nearly impossible thing to tell somebody’s life story in 40 minutes.”

Golden’s father was left paralyzed after an ATV accident, robbing him the opportunity to ride again. This happened a few months before the father-daughter duo was set to compete in the Loretta Lynn’s Amateur Nationals when Vicki was 12. While she might have been unable to grasp the severity at the time, it’s something she carries with her. Golden continues to ride in his honor.

Years later, an accident in 2018 nearly sidelined the then 25-year-old Vicki when a freestyle accident almost resulted in the amputation of her lower leg.

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Golden 805 Beer — *Vicki Golden has ridden a variety of disciplines in SuperMotocross, which gives her a unique perspective. – 805 Beer*

“Inverted Perspective” highlights her father’s diligence in helping Vicki continue with her career and the kindness and strength he carried while fighting his own battle.

“My dad was the entire reason that I started riding in the first place,” Golden said. “So, to honor his memory and to honor what we went through and how hard he pushed to keep our dream alive and keep everything going – in that sense then, it was really special to be able to honor him and talk about him.”

The 40-minute feature was filmed entirely in black and white, a stark contrast from the oversaturated world of motocross where the brighter the suit the easier it is for fans to find their rider and follow him in the race. By filming in monochrome Russo and Golden had the chance to focus on the race and track from a different perspective.

“It was cool to be able to film it differently,” Golden said. “It created a challenge in the sense of what was going to be more visually impactful for the film.

“I couldn’t be here without the companies that back me but at the same time, it’s not like the logos or colors disappeared, it’s just different lights shed on different spots. It’s just a cool way to do it and to take color away and still be impactful. When you think of black and white, you think of old school, the OG way of doing things.”

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