Clyde Dunn remembers the first time he won a championship on the dirt track at Texas Motor Speedway.
“It was a lot easier back then,” he said and laughed. “They keep getting harder, the older you get.”The 29-year-old from Sunnyvale was a 20-year-old back then.“Now there’s so many good guys — there’s at least 10 guys who could win.”For now, he counts himself among those 10 or more who could win the Modified title at the Port-A-Cool World Dirt Track Championships on Saturday night . The 2012 USRA Modified National runner-up just has to figure out his new car, making its debut on the quarter-mile at TMS. He wasn’t pleased with it during the heat races and practices on a chilly Friday night.But that comes with the territory, he said.“Some you get brand new, they’re good right off the bat,” said Dunn, a fan favorite known as “Little Freaky” — he figures because of his tattoos. “You get some others that it takes a little while. We’re just trying to get the odds and ends banged out of it. Just trying to figure it out, more or less. They’re all different.”“Don’t count us out yet. It’s still only a heat race. We made some good passes at points. We’ll be there at the end.”It’s worth it to figure it out. A championship on the Fort Worth track carries weight in the world of dirt-track racing, he said.“We’re a two-time winner here, and it means a lot to come back to try to win the title again,” said Dunn, who also won at the TMS fall events in 2011 and 2003. “We’re all out here trying to win. There’s a lot of good guys out here. The competition’s really tough.“For $3,000 to win — I’ve never seen a a $3,000-to-win have this many cars. We can race for $10,000 or $20,000 and get 80 cars, so this — it’s not about the money. It’s the bragging rights of the place. That’s what everybody’s racing for.”Dunn’s chief competition figures to come from Steve Whiteaker Jr., who won TMS dirt track fall championships in 2012 and 2010.But Dunn shook his head as he looked down the row of cars behind the backstretch.“I could name any one of these,” he said.Carlos Mendez, 817-390-7407 Twitter: @calexmendez
