Meghan Dillner is only 14-years-old, but she has experienced a lot in the racing world. She has heard the ins and outs of the NASCAR Sprint Cup garage by listening to the stories her father, SPEED television commentator Bob Dillner, tells. She has been a driver herself for four seasons. And she's been part of the BDI Racing driver development team, which fields various forms of cars, from Quarter Midgets to Super Late Models. Now she will be taking her next step forward after graduating from the Bandolero ranks to the Pro Challenge Series.

Meghan Dillner's swan song to the Bandolero world wasn't a joyous as she had hoped for, but she did look good while it lasted. Dillner started fifth in the Lowe's Motor Speedway's pole night event and held that position for the first half of the event. Just when it looked as though she may make her move, the car slowed suddenly, which forced her to pull the Buffalo Wild Wings of Concord, NC #51 into the pits. The clutch had broken on her machine.

“That's not the way I wanted it to end, but I still had fun,” said the young Dillner. “I knew it (the clutch) was going because it just got slower and slower off the corners; that's why everyone in front of me got a jump on that last restart. It felt good running in the top-five with such a strong field of cars here for pole night now. I guess somebody was trying to tell me today to stop racing these cars anyway and just move to Pro Challenge.”

That's exactly what she will do. The New York-native will now concentrate solely on the National Pro Challenge Series for the remainder of the year. Meghan made her series debut at Lanier National Speedway earlier this month with a top-five finish.

She will have a great teammate to work with in Pro Challenge. Nick Stroupe won that Lanier event a few weeks back and sits in the top-five in national series points. Thursday, he was wheeling his Texas Roadhouse #51 Legends Car at LMS. A car that was down on power due to new INEX engine rules for 1200cc engines put the 12-year-old at a disadvantage.

“They would just beat me from just off the corner to the flag stand,” explained Stroupe, who finished seventh. “It was loose, but I had to make it that way to compete because we were down on power.”

Still, a top-10 finish against a strong field of cars is nothing to complain about.

“We had a really tough week. Our shop was vandalized and our trailers were broken into and among the things that were taken was my helmet. I have to say thanks to Kelli from IMPACT Racing because she had a helmet for me today and without that I would not have been able to race.”

The next Pro Challenge event for BDI Racing will be a “Rookie Race” for Meghan Dillner at Orange County Speedway in Rougemont, NC on June 7th. Both Meghan and Nick will be in action the following week when the Pro Challenge North Series competes at Dillon Motor Speedway in Dillon, SC on Saturday, June 14th.