Around the time he was 10, Dillard began hot lapping his father’s car when all the feature races were complete at whatever track they happened to be at on a given night. He was so small, Dillard said, that they often had to put a pillow in the seat to help him see over the steering wheel.
When he turned 13, his parents got him his own modified.
“Ever since I was a kid, it’s kind of all I ever wanted to do,” Dillard said. “I raced my own car there for a long time. All through school I got asked pretty regularly what my future plans were, and I always told them I just want to drive race cars.
“My teachers kind of frowned upon that,” he said. “Some of them got onto me pretty good and they told me I needed a realistic dream.”
Thanks to his relationship with Sprinkle, Dillard has been living his dream for the last five years.
Initially, the partnership saw Dillard race a dirt modified. In 2016, he fell just short of capturing the United States Modified Touring Series national championship, losing to Jason Hughes by three points.
He continued to race dirt modifieds for a few years, but Dillard knew Sprinkle had other things in mind.
“He wanted to run mods for a few years, but his ultimate goal was to own a late model team,” Dillard said. “We raced USMTS in 2016 and ’17 and then we got a late model and started racing a little bit in ’18.”
In 2019, Dillard and Sprinkle took a big leap by hitting the road with the World of Outlaws Late Model Series. He ended his first year with the series seventh in the standings with no victories, seven top-five results and 17 top-10 finishes.
This year, Dillard found his stride early, scoring his first series victory in the tour’s third race of the season at Vado (N.M.) Speedway Park on Jan. 5. The victory was worth $15,000 for Dillard and company, but the best was yet to come.
On June 27, Dillard earned the biggest victory of his career, leading every lap of the annual Firecracker at Pennsylvania’s Lernerville Speedway. The victory, worth $30,000, saw him outrun the best dirt late model competitors in the business at one of the biggest events of the season.
“This is unreal,” Dillard said at the time. “I really don’t know what to say right now. This whole deal is a dream come true. I never in a million years thought that something like this could happen to me.”
Away from the track, Dillard keeps busy. At the end of 2019, he completed a new race shop and has been assembling race cars, mostly modifieds, for clients when he’s not on the road racing.
“It just kind of opened up a lot of opportunities for me,” Dillard said. “I’m a dealer for MB Customs (the chassis company owned by Jimmy and Chris Mars). I sell a lot of cars through them. I get them as frames, and we put them together here. I think we’re on nine new cars that we’ve sold this year.”
That’s the tip of the iceberg for Dillard, who says he does a lot of other side work out of his shop. As it turned out, that proved to be a financial lifesaver when the COVID-19 pandemic shut down racing earlier this year.
“It helps pay the bills, especially during the coronavirus when we weren’t racing. It was kind of a lifesaver for me just to have that income coming and that work for me to do,” Dillard said.
Thinking back to his high school years, Dillard admits he’d love to invite a certain teacher who said he needed a realistic dream to visit his race shop to see how his racing dream has treated him.
“I’ve got a few checks on my wall. I feel really proud of what we’ve been able to build,” Dillard said. “I probably wouldn’t say anything too smart. I think she could just look around and it would kind of speak for itself.
“This one stayed on me pretty good. She told me the real world was going to bite me if I didn’t get a realistic job. It’s worked out so far.”
Dillard said he doesn’t have any long-term goals and he’s enjoying the journey.
That’s not a bad place to be.
“I feel like I’ve by far exceeded any goal I ever had,” Dillard said. “Several years back, I dreamed of driving a late model and here we are. I’ve won a couple of races and I’m competing at the highest level.
“I wouldn’t really say I have a whole lot of goals,” he continued. “I really enjoy what I’m doing. I like being able to race like we are. I really enjoy the car building side of things and the customers I have. I enjoy being able to help those people.
“I just want to keep going like we are. I want to keep growing the Cade Dillard Racing side of things and the car building. Just do more of that. I really enjoy what I do. I don’t really plan on changing it.”