RPW Exclusive: Rookie Of The Year Alex Payne Enjoyed His Time On The Super DIRTcar Series In ’24
Column By: BOBBY CHALMERS / RPW – HOPEWELL, NY – In his own words, the 2024 season was a dream year for Alex Payne, especially on the Super DIRTcar Series.
The Hopewell, NY driver got to chase the Tour for the first time against the best drivers in Dirt Modified racing and even found his way to victory lane against them at the Brockville Ontario Speedway in September.
Once the World Finals had completed at Charlotte last month, Payne and his Nardozzi Paving & Construction 70A was seventh in Series points and was named the top Rookie on Tour for 2024.
“The World Finals didn’t go the way we had hoped, but the effort we put in down there paid off,” Payne said. “Being named Rookie of the Year with the Super DIRTcar Series is amazing. It truly wouldn’t be possible without any of our sponsors or our crew who made it possible for us.”
Even to this day, what Payne and his team accomplished in 2024 on the Super DIRTcar Series hasn’t set in yet. In addition to the win, Payne scored four more top 5 finishes and was in the top 10 on nine more occasions.
It was a pretty good season to be Alex Payne.
“It was an incredible year for us on the Series,” Payne said. “We sure had a lot of fun and learned a lot. This is a tough thing to keep sledding with but we couldn’t be happier with how our season went.”
Probably the best part of Payne’s learning curve happened on Saturday nights all season. The young racer competed against several of the Tour regulars at Paul Cole’s Land of Legends Raceway. Not only that, he beat them on multiple occasions, nailing down three huge wins and never finishing out of the top 10 all season.
“To race against Mat Williamson, Matt Sheppard and Peter Britten weekly, you get use to those guys,” he said. “I think I had something like 10 to 15 starts with the tour over the last few years heading into this season. You learn what to expect especially with competing against the caliber of drivers we do on Saturday nights.”
There was no chance for Payne to take a breather at Land of Legends.
“That is a stacked field at Canandaigua,” he said. “There’s like half of a dozen drivers who ran the Series full-time this season that race there weekly so you really had to be on from the moment you unload each week.”
Racing against drivers like that weekly sure helped Payne get up to speed when he traveled the Super DIRTcar schedule this past season to some tracks he’d never seen before.
“Having to be on our game weekly helped us greatly out on the road,” he said. “Traveling from track to track and the consistency of trying to be good all the time is what’s really tough but being able to run with these guys and run well sure was amazing and I can’t wait to see what next season holds for us.”
