Kate Dallenbach adding to her family’s racing heritage

Kate Dallenbach has been driving race cars since she was a young girl, which seems only natural when her family’s racing history is taken into consideration. And the now 18-year-old resident of Mooresville, NC looks to make her own way in the sport and add to that legacy as she sojourns through the racing world on both dirt and asphalt tracks all over the southeastern United States.

Kate’s family consists of her mother, Robin (McCall) Dallenbach, who along with other achievements in the sport, started two NASCAR Sprint Cup races in 1982. Her father, Wally Dallenbach, Jr., drove in NASCAR for several years as well as in various other forms of racing and now serves as a television commentator. Grandfather Wally Dallenbach, Sr. drove for many years in Indy cars and later went on to serve as the Chief Steward for the sanctioning body of that form of racing.

“I first started racing quarter midgets when I was 8 years old,” Kate Dallenbach recalled in an exclusive interview with InsideDirtRacing.com. “The reason I first got into it was that both of my older brothers were racing, and being competitive and all, I wanted to do it so I could go out there and beat them. After I started doing it, I pretty much just fell in love with it.”

While the path this young lady has taken throughout her early racing career may seem much the same as others of a similar age, the level of success she has attained is quite unique. Race wins and championships have been achieved all along the way.

“After racing the quarter midgets, I moved up to the Allison Legacy Series in Kyle, Texas,” she recounted. “In my first year in that, I won Rookie of the Year and the championship. After that, we moved to Florida so I could race Late Models at New Smyrna.”

And that success in Dallenbach’s early years did not go unnoticed by those at the highest levels of the sport.

“When I was about 10 years old, I was at a NASCAR race and Richard Childress walked up and we talked a little bit about my racing,” the driver explained. “He told me that whenever I was ready to give him a call. I never forgot about that and when I got to the time when I felt ready, we contacted him and he gave me the opportunity to go with Shane McDowell and the TDR team to test on dirt and start racing. I’m really grateful for that.”

Shortly after that test session with Team Dillon Racing, the Dallenbach family moved from Florida to their current home in North Carolina to be closer to that operation. TDR is operated by Mike Dillon and his NASCAR racing sons, Austin and Ty. The enterprise not only fields dirt cars for the brothers, but also for veteran standout Dale McDowell. Further, TDR furnishes racing machines for grassroots level drivers in the Richard Childress Racing driver development program, which is where Dallenbach currently finds herself.

“I honestly don’t think I could be with a better dirt team,” Dallenbach declared. “They are the best and they’re really good at helping me and giving me good advice. They know it better than anybody. It’s really cool to have them help me and guide me through, especially last year when I was first starting out.”

While she also values the racing advice of her parents, Dallenbach points out that her mother and father often times yield to those within the TDR team who prepare her cars.

“Of course, having two parents who have raced, they can give me good advice because they’ve been there and they’ve been through it,” she explained. “But usually when I’m at the track they kind of let me deal with the team and they don’t get too overly involved. But when I have questions, they are really supportive and they can always help me. That’s another thing I’m really lucky to have, a family that understands what’s going on.”

This weekend, Dallenbach will race her Crate Late Model at the Boyd’s Speedway in Ringgold, Georgia for TDR. She became familiar with the track’s third-mile layout last year and hopes to build on the successes she had in only a handful of starts.

“I did ten races last year at Boyd’s,” she remembered. “I think my best finish was a second(she also won a B-main as well). This year we’re going to do about the same thing, ten races or so at Boyd’s and we’re going to continue doing the asphalt Late Models as well.”

So what’s it like going from dirt to asphalt and back again?

“You would think it would be difficult to adjust to going back and forth. But one thing I have found is that when I go race on the dirt then go back to asphalt, there’s always an improvement. Racing on dirt really helps to teach me a lot of car control and that’s one of the biggest things, getting sideways and stuff like that. They really benefit each other.”

And as one might expect, Dallenbach hopes to follow in the footsteps of her racing family members all the way to the top levels of the sport.

“I would definitely say I have my sights set on NASCAR. This year we’re going to do a full season in Late Models, but next year I’m hoping to get into the truck series and then just keep going from there.”