ROSSBURG, Ohio – At the start of the week, Landon Huffman wasn’t even supposed to be at Eldora Speedway for the seventh annual Dirt Derby, and yet he was on-site when practice kicked off on Wednesday.
Huffman was called in by Young’s Motorsports as a pinch-hitter substitute when regular driver Spencer Boyd announced he’d be sitting out the Eldora event due to a recent back injury.
For Huffman – a former late model racer who ran a handful of Truck Series events last season, but has returned to regular competition at Hickory (N.C.) Motor Speedway this year – the chance to run at one of the most historic dirt tracks in the nation was one he couldn’t turn down, if a little bit out of the blue.
“I got the call a day and a half before we left to come here,” Huffman explained. “It’s Spencer’s seat that I’m actually in; that’s how tight this deal was just for me to get here and drive it. I’ve only had one seat insert my entire life, but it’s interesting because I’m already out of my element even being on the dirt.
“I think we’ll be fine, though. If I can take care of the truck during the race, we should do well.”
Unlike some of the drivers in the field, like big-block modified aces Stewart Friesen and Tyler Dippel, UMP modified veteran Kyle Strickler or even two-time Truck Series champion Matt Crafton, Huffman is among those in the field who has little-to-no dirt racing experience under his belt to be able to lean on.
That means he’s trying to absorb information every single time he hits the track in his No. 20 Chevrolet.
“Man, I’m probably as raw as they come out of anyone out here,” Huffman noted. “I was surprised when I got the call, but Team Dillon (Management) has a really good relationship with Young’s and certainly gave a good push to help get me this opportunity. I’m just happy to be here and want to survive and finish decent. I’m learning every time I hit the race track, because I’ve never run on dirt in my life.
“This is a whole new world for me, but I’m trying to have fun and enjoy it as much as I can.”
– Much like Huffman, Christian Eckes was a late substitution into the Eldora lineup, playing the role of super sub for Kyle Busch Motorsports with Logan Seavey tied up in Pennsylvania driving a USAC midget for Keith Kunz.
Eckes does have three ARCA Menards Series starts on dirt, however, and leaned on that experience and a win at the Illinois State Fairgrounds last fall to get up to speed on Wednesday night during practice.
The 18-year-old from Middletown, N.Y., was 12th and 13th, respectively, in the pair of 50-minute sessions that set Thursday night’s heat race lineups.
“It’s definitely been different than what I’m used to, and I expected that,” Eckes noted. “I didn’t have a lot of expectations coming in here, but I was hoping to have a little bit more speed than what we’ve had so far. The team has been doing a great job, though, and we’re getting closer to where we need to be.
“We’re still a couple of tenths off, but hopefully we can find that extra speed we need come race time.”
– With only 32 trucks on the property for Thursday night’s race, that means there won’t be anyone sent home after the Last Chance Showdown, which is good news for 20-year-old Maryland young gun Devin Dodson.
Dodson is making his Truck Series debut on the dirt at Eldora, meaning the pressure was already off his shoulders as far as trying to make the show and he was able to turn his focus to race craft.
However, a cut tire that led to a hard impact into the outside wall left Dodson with a heavily-damaged Chevrolet and forced him to sit out final practice while his Reaume Brothers Racing crew made repairs.
“That, obviously, wasn’t how we wanted to start our week here,” said Dodson. “We just ran over something and the next lap around, it just went straight and then next thing I knew, I was in the wall. It made for a lot of work and some stress on the guys, but we’ll fight back. We want to have a solid run.
“Depending on how the heat race goes, if we feel like we need to run the Last Chance Showdown … we may drop back to put ourselves in a position to get more laps, but we’ll see how it goes,” he added. “I’m just grateful to be here and I’m trying to soak it all in as much as I can. These chances don’t come around all the time.”
– Of the six prior Truck Series winners at Eldora, a unique statistical anomaly unites the most recent three drivers to have hoisted the Golden Shovel trophy at the half-mile dirt oval.
For each of them – Kyle Larson (2016), Matt Crafton (2017) and defending winner Chase Briscoe – their Eldora victory stands as their most-recent triumph in Truck Series competition.
Briscoe has not competed in a Truck Series race since winning at Eldora last summer, while Crafton is riding a two-year winless drought and is seeking his first score since returning to ThorSport Racing.
Both of them are in Thursday night’s field, while Larson is racing a USAC midget out in Pennsylvania.