The condfidence level was high for 15-year-old Meghan Dillner and her BDI Racing team in the Pro Challenge North Region's season-opener at Orange County Speedway (NC) on March 7 th . The team had prepared a fast #51 Chev-Stang and the driver was making her first start at OCS since stealing the show in a non-points rookie race at the track last season. With good notes and some strong laps under her belt, all signs were pointing towards a good showing in the North Region opener.

While the road signs were there, the roadblocks along the way proved to be the determining factor in turning a winning effort into seventh-place finish. Dillner suffered mechanical problems in practice, forcing the team to put in a backup engine in the #51 machine before qualifying. Still, Dillner was able to time in an impressive third-quick for the 50-lap feature.

Once the green flew, Dillner found herself in second and gaining on the early leader. All things were going in her direction, until contact from another competitor sent her backtracking through the field. From there, Dillner did her best to creep back up towards the front before other competitors' misfortunes and mistakes kept her out of victory lane.

“I'm definitely not going to say that I'm the luckiest person in the world on the track,” said Dillner. “I've definitely had some situations that haven't been on my side. There were a couple in that race that I can think of. On the first restart, I got moved out of the way and shuffled back to fourth. From then, when I twas trying to come back through there, the car in front of me spun and I had nowhere to go. That knocked the toe out and it was harder to drive from there on out. Then a guy tried to dump me once and he couldn't do it, then he did it the second time. That was no fun.

“Despite the finish that we had, I gained a lot of confidence out there. I knew that before that first caution, I was gaining on the leader and I had the car to win that day. That gives me a lot of confidence in just the first race of the season. I know I can do well in the rest of the races and I'm looking forward to showing that at Hickory this weekend.”

Luckily, Dillner's on-track incidents did not damage her Chev-Stang too badly, so the BDI Racing team has a strong car for this Saturday's second North Region race at Hickory Motor Speedway, a place the BDI Racing team has always run well at in both the Pro Challenge and Super Late Model ranks, but has yet to crack into victory lane.

“I'm definitely looking forward to this race at Hickory. I know the track. I like the track. I'm really hoping that I can be the first BDI Racing driver to win at Hickory.”