Sargeant’s Next Step
Dalton Sargeant will compete in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East in 2015 for HScott Motorsports with Justin Marks. A newcomer to stock cars, Sargeant made 21 Late Model starts in North Carolina and Virginia this season.
“We’ve actually been talking to everyone at HScott Motorsports for a few months now,” Sargeant said. “They were aware of when we were racing Late Model stock cars and kept an eye out. From there, we had a few conversations, but it wasn’t until we started racing Super Late Models that they were really interested.
“After the Snowball Derby, and with some help from partners that we will be able to announce at a later date, we were able to put together a package for the 2015 NASCAR K&N Pro Series East schedule. It’s really exciting to be able to compete with such a great race team and the people they have are second to none, six months ago I would’ve thought this opportunity was well out of reach, but very thankful they’re taking a chance and a gamble on me in 2015.”
“I think whenever you join a team like HScott Motorsports and their previous history in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East, you have to set your expectations pretty high,” Sargeant said. “For myself and my team, I expect to go out and compete for wins and be able to visit victory lane next season, and ultimately contend for a championship. … I know the equipment is there, I know the people are in place to make it happen; now the driver just needs to make it happen on the track, week in and week out.”
Sargeant found recent success in his first Stock Car season. The turning point for him came after joining two established organizations in September, Lee Pulliam Performance and Wauters Motorsports. The 16-year-old Boca Raton, FL driver raced Super Late Models for Wauters Motorsports in the Pro All Stars Series (PASS) and Southern Super Series.
“The transition to stock car racing was definitely difficult to say the least,” Sargeant said. “…It wasn’t until halfway into the racing season that something just clicked and I became comfortable and confident in a stock car.”
“Working with Lee Pulliam and Richie Wauters (has) been one of the reasons we saw success in the second half of the season,” Sargeant said. “There’s so much that can be said about Lee Pulliam, but probably one of the best mentors I’ve had so far in stock car racing is Richie Wauters. Not only does he mentor me about track conditions, my line, tires, pit strategy, etc., but he also mentors me about how to handle myself off the racetrack. Wauters has worked with so many drivers over his career including Kyle Busch, Aric Almirola, and Denny Hamlin that he can pass on lessons and knowledge from those previous experiences to me. That has shown through and with his mentorship over the past three months has totally revolutionized the way the team and I go to the race track each week.”
“I received support and had veteran leadership, which I hadn’t experienced yet before. Through that whole transition is where I realized that quality people make the biggest differences in stock car racing.”
Sargeant is encouraged by his latest outing at Five Flags Speedway in Pensacola, FL. He finished second to John Hunter Nemechek in the 300-lap event that featured 37 starters. “Everyone thought we were crazy to expect a performance like we ended up having.” Sargeant said the pressure to qualify for high profile races like the Winchester 400 and the Snowball Derby was familiar from his Karting career.
Sargeant has worked with two time NASCAR Whelen All-American Series national champion Lee Pulliam of Semora, NC. Pulliam won 26 Late Model races at five tracks this season. Sargeant won his first Late Model race October 25.
“I had the ability, but I didn’t always apply it or know how to apply it until I met Lee Pulliam. Everyone knows Lee Pulliam as a great driver, but people don’t realize that he’s just as great as a crew chief, car owner and driver coach.”
“The Orange County win meant a lot to me and the people around me at Lee Pulliam Performance and if anything, it sparked the momentum we’ve had for the past two months and hopefully it carries into the offseason,” Sargeant said.
Pulliam knows the challenge that Sargeant will face. Pulliam made six starts in the series last season with a pair of top fives. A full-time effort was sidelined when Shigeaki Hattori shuttered the operation midseason. He made another appearance for Top Gun Motorsports.
“I really think he’s going to be fine,” Pulliam said. “He’s got a lot of car control and throttle control and that’s the biggest thing with those cars is throttle control. You’ve got quite a bit of horsepower. I think he’s going to be really, really good right off the bat. I predict he’s going to be one of the guys to beat for the championship, I really do. I was really impressed with the way he raced when he raced for us this year and I think he’s going to be tough.”
“He’s done really, really well. He impressed me the first time we went to the track. I didn’t really watch him a lot going through the year; I’ve raced against him some. He had speed in his car always, but once I was able to work with him, I really enjoyed it.”
Sargeant had a perfect day in the Southeast Limited Late Model Series race at Virginia International Raceway (VIR) in Alton on August 16. He paced practice, won the pole, and led every lap in his maiden stock car victory.
“We knew ahead of time we should win the VIR race if nothing catastrophic happened. With not a lot of competition, and my background as a road racer, we expected a win, and weren’t going to settle for anything less.”
Sargeant’s skills were built by racing Karts and Formula cars. Car control was harnessed “racing open wheel cars in Europe on old surfaces, and even in the rain,” Sargeant said. Some of the largest events in Europe saw 150 Karting competitors. The 2011 Rotax Max Challenge United States Grand Nationals champion called the experience “a blast.” “The cars were a lot of fun to drive and the competition over there was really intense.”
The son of a former Kart racer, Sargeant began his career at age eight after he and his younger brother Logan received Go Karts for Christmas. “We both took them out and started just running it around the local track for a few months and then eventually figured we were good enough to compete and we went racing around Florida,” Sargeant said.
In addition to HScott Motorsports with Justin Marks, Harry Scott, Jr. owns HScott Motorsports, a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series team he purchased from Phoenix Racing in 2013. Justin Allgaier drives for the team. HScott Motorsports with Chip Ganassi will field the No. 42 NASCAR XFINITY Series entry for Kyle Larson and Dylan Kwasniewski from Ganassi’s shop in Concord, NC
Scott formerly fielded teams in the NASCAR XFINITY (formerly Nationwide), Camping World Truck and K&N Pro Series East with Steve Turner. Turner Scott Motorsports won the last two K&N East championships with Dylan Kwasniewski and Ben Rhodes.
Sources: Nicholas Teto/YankeeRacer.com