The old racing adage that preaches consistency as the key to an on-track championship is one that Meghan Dillner has already learned in her young racing career. With her sights fixated directly on the 2009 Pro Challenge Series National Championship, Dillner left Tri-County Motor Speedway (NC) on May 22nd having met her goals for the first National Point event in the North Region.

While DIllner was, at times, faster than the eventual winner Kyle Benjamin, the 15-year-old third-generation racer knows that the third-place qualifying run and second-place finish in National Point event number-one could go a long way towards the National Championship.

"I'm very happy witht his run because I see it as a great omen," said Dillner. "It's a great start. We got second-place points and some bonus points for qualifying in the top-three. We can use this to build off of now. I think I can improve a little bit in my qualifying and of course I'm going to want to improve every race during the National Series. I feel really good about finishing second; it was a solid run."

After starting third, Dillner used a bottom-shot move to get past Trevor Edwards for the runner-up spot early in the event and set her sights on the back bumper of polesitter Kyle Benjamin. Dillner

eventually reeled Benjamin in, giving the three-time series winner a run for his money.

A lap-22 caution flag bunched the field up one final time. The single-file restart was Dillner's opportunity to pounce if Benjamin slipped up again like he did on the opening start, but it was also Benjamin's opportunity to keep the rest of the field behind him if he got a solid fire at the drop of the green flag.

Much to Dillner's chagrin, Benjamin got the perfect restart that he needed and went on to victory.

“Of course I wanted to get by that #71 car (Benjamin) in front of me,” said Dillner. “I was looking at all the options. If he slacked off a little bit, maybe I could get a good jump on him. But, he got a great restart just when he needed it and I followed right behind him. I knew that if I had an opportunity, I was going to take it, though.”

Dillner's second-place finish has her second in National Points for the North Region as the series' second National Point event comes Saturday, May 30th at Dillon Motor Speedway. Dillner has competed at Dillon twice before, finishing sixth in her track debut and fourth later in the 2008 season.

"Like my dad says, ‘a good driver can race at any track.' That's the attitude that I'm taking to Dillon. I'm just hoping I get just as good of a run if not better there than I did at Tri-County,, but I'm really going to be shooting for that win."

Before the Tri-County race, Tim Baier from News 14 Carolina was on site at the track filming a story on Meghan, her car owner and dad Bob and the rest of the BDI Racing team. The piece aired on the network's "Sports Night" broadcast directly after the Coke 600 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race. Check out the story by clicking here.