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FRIDAY FEATURE: Lupton's Special Incentive

Dylan Lupton has an extra incentive for doing well in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series West.

The more time he spends behind the wheel, the less time he spends behind a shovel. When the NASCAR rookie isn’t driving, he’s going to school or working for his father at the family-owned excavation business.

While his car is painted in the traditional Bob Bruncati’s Sunrise Ford colors, Lupton Excavation and vadio share the sponsorship for the season.

“When I’m not driving, I’m just another guy with a shovel in the ditch,” he said.

In the off-season, when he’s not driving or shoveling, 19-year-old Lupton keeps a schedule that would have most other drivers panting.

Although he’s racing in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series West, he is studying business at the University of North Carolina in Charlotte. His back-up career plan is to be involved in a racing related business.

It’s not an on-line or distance learning program at UNC. He’s in the classroom at the Charlotte campus.

“My schedule is that I take classes Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday,” he explained. “So Wednesday night or Thursday morning I’m on a plane headed west.”

He returns to Charlotte Sunday night to make Monday lectures. The flying time gives Lupton plenty of opportunity to study, so he’s still maintaining an average of better than 3.0.

Lupton began his racing career on dirt bikes.

“I broke a lot of bones before I got into karts,” he said with a grin.

In karts, his schedule had him racing all over the country.

His first year in karting was cut short by an injury, but in 2008 he won the Junior Jim Russell Kart Series Championship, along with racing karts in a regional series. In 2009, he was the Pro-Kart Tag Jr. National Champion, with seven wins and 13 podium finishes.

The series ran exclusively on road courses, so Lupton is enthused about going to the twisting, left-right corner circuits of Brainard (Minn.) International Raceway, Sonoma (Calif.) Raceway and Miller Motorsports Park in Tooele, Utah.

“I’m really comfortable on those types of tracks,” he said. “They really suit my driving style. It was actually a big adjustment to go racing on ovals.”

Lupton made his transition to full-bodied stock cars in 2010, racing with California’s High Point Racing at Irwindale Speedway in Southern California. He got his first win half way through his rookie season, then followed it up with three more to become the S2 series champion and Rookie of the Year at Irwindale.

He returned to High Point Racing in 2011. The team struggled with mechanical issues in the first half of the season, but Lupton managed to finish the year with four wins, and was ranked 17th in the nation in the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series.

“He came to us right out of karts,” said High Point’s Tim Huddleston, “and we right away put him in a full-bodied stock car on an oval. “His biggest challenge was car placement on the track. He was use to sitting low down in the middle of a car, and then suddenly he’s on the left side trying to figure out where on the track he should be.”

But Huddleston said Lupton was a quick learner “and his feedback is phenomenal. He is a crew chief’s dream. He can tell you exactly what the car is doing on the track, so he is simply great to work with.”

During the summer of 2011, Lupton also worked for Bill McAnally Racing at BMR’s headquarters near Sacramento, Calif.

“Dylan is a hard worker very determined to win,” McAnally said. “He worked in our shop learning how to do maintenance and prepare NASCAR K&N cars, while commuting to Irwindale to race late models successfully for Huddleston, winning regularly and contending for the track championship.”

Huddleston said the long commute gave him an opportunity to get to know his driver better.

“He’s such a nice guy that we invited him to stay with us at our house,” he said. “So he’d be making ice cream sundaes at night and fixing waffles in the morning. We got the opportunity to really see the kind of representative he would be for the sport.”

Huddleston said Lupton was the first driver in the High Point development program to engage in the “test up” concept.

“Although he was racing in the S2 class, during the off weeks he would test in the much more powerful late model cars. Practicing in the faster cars made him a much better driver in the lower class. It is now a concept we use with most of our young drivers.”

The High Point owner said Lupton could land in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series or NASCAR Nationwide Series within the next few years.

“I have very high hopes for him,” he said.

Near the end of the 2011 season, McAnally put Lupton in one of his NASCAR K&N Pro Series cars for events at All American Speedway, Montana Raceway Park and Phoenix International Raceway. He practiced and qualified well, although his results didn’t show his potential.

“He is a good driver that has a bright future,” McAnally said. “I’m impressed with his skills and glad Bob (Bruncati) has given him an opportunity to run for a championship.”

Lupton hoped to build on his experience with BMR to put together a package to race in the K&N Pro Series West in 2012, but the pieces never came together, so he competed full time in the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series, racing out of Virginia.

“I got to race late models on tracks in Virginia and North Carolina,” he said. “It was a great experience because I was on different tracks racing really good drivers in a very competitive series. I think the experience really was good preparation for this year in the K&N Series.”

But this season didn’t begin as well as he hoped.

At the first race at Phoenix he qualified a disappointing 14th.

“We were chasing a car loose all day Thursday in practice and so we tightened the car up. However, we just tightened the car up too much and it was killing us in the race,” he said.

But then things went from bad to worse.

“We were caught up in a crash on the front stretch when two cars got into each other. There was no place for me to go,” he explained.

In spite of the problems, he managed to stay on the lead lap “and we were still able to finish the race in 14th, but with a torn up racecar.”

“The thing I learned the most during the race is that every race is not going to go as we planned,” he reflected. “We’re going to have bad races where we simply just miss the set up a little bit, but a key thing is to finish every lap to be in contention to win rookie of the year.”

And left unsaid is that even a bad day at the track is better than a good day in the ditch.

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