ALGER, Wash. — Skagit Casino Resort presents the 54th annual Jim Raper Memorial Super Dirt Cup at Skagit Speedway, paying over $100,000 to the winner on Saturday Night.
Hailing from Owasso, Okla., Daryn Pittman will drive Don Kreitz Jr.’s familiar No. 69k sprint car in the prestigious event.
Pittman has been racing this year with Don Kreitz and the 69K car, a team that predominantly races in Central Pennsylvania.
Through six races so far this year, Pittman’s best finish was fifth Florida’s Volusia Speedway Park. It will be the farthest west the Pennsylvania-based team has traveled.
“I don’t know what to expect,” Don Kreitz said. “Generally, we’re not a knockout team on small tracks, just because we don’t have many of them out here, so we don’t run them that much, but we’ll do the best we can.”
Pittman, however, is no stranger to Skagit Speedway, winning back-to-back in 2017 and 2018 when the World of Outlaws came for their two-day show. Pittman ran last year’s Skagit Nationals with Jason Meyers Racing. Pittman made the A-main all three nights, with his best finish being 12th on Thursday night.
“It’s a track I’ve had success at, so hopefully I can relay some of my information over to Don, and we can roll around there, you know, hopefully pretty quickly, early on into the three-day event,” Pittman said.
Pittman knows track conditions will be important at the three-tenths-mile track.
“Keeping an eye on track conditions, knowing our strengths, knowing our weaknesses, and just basically trying to improve, and then going to a place that you know they’ve never been to,” Pittman said “You know, obviously I’m sure they’re going to rely on me a lot to try to give them some good feedback, and I’ve got to try to get zoned in pretty quickly, and try to relay to them what I think we need to be to be better.”
This year will be Pittman’s first attempt at running Super Dirt Cup. Kreitz said he and a partner on the team were talking a few years ago about how, before Kreitz hangs it up, it would be neat to run different tracks, so they’ve started doing that the past couple of years.
“If we didn’t think we had a chance to compete for a win, I don’t think we would make the trip,” Pittman said. “But obviously we know that there’s 20 other legit cars that have the same mindset, so we also know what a tough task that’ll be … I think the 69k is proven to be a car capable of winning pretty much anywhere that it shows up.”
