Central Arizona Raceway
Wrenchmen help Dotson to satisfying desert win
By Kyle McFadden
DirtonDirt staff reporter
Ethan Dotson in victory lane. (Terry Page)
CASA GRANDE, Ariz. (Jan. 14) — Entering this week’s Rio Grande Waste Services Wild West Shootout, Ethan Dotson expected to give favorites Bobby Pierce, Jonathan Davenport and Hudson O’Neal a run for their money. | Complete WWS coverage
The 26-year-old Bakersfield, Calif., driver was convinced that anything short of cashing a lucrative paycheck in the Sonoran Desert would’ve meant a cross-country trip that failed to live up to its full potential.
“I would’ve been mad if we didn’t win a couple of these, or at least one,” Dotson said, his confidence on full display in Wednesday’s thrilling victory at Central Arizona Raceway with accredited wrenchmen Tommy Grecco and Cody Mallory in his corner at ASD Motorsports.
Punctuating the $10,000 triumph with an eye-opening move around race-long leader Bobby Pierce on a lap-23 restart, Dotson charged from fifth to his first miniseries win over the final 10 laps, delivering the most impressive march to victory of his emerging Dirt Late Model career.
“I have the Dream Team this week,” Dotson added through a wide smile.
Recency bias might suggest that Wednesday’s victory supplants last April’s first-ever World of Outlaws Late Model Series victory at Farmer City (Ill.) Raceway as the biggest of Dotson’s third-year Super Late Model career. But Dotson pumps the brakes on those claims while putting the triumph at the Chris Kearns-promoted miniseries into proper perspective.
“I don’t know, the Outlaw race was pretty special,” he said. “This one is cool because the Kearns family has always been close to me as a kid growing up, whenever Chris owned (California’s) Santa Maria (Speedway). This is just super special and cool.”
Starting seventh, Dotson wasn’t a serious contender until second-running Hudson O’Neal drew the final caution with eight laps remaining when his left-rear tire went flat during a spirited lead battle with Pierce. That moved Tyler Erb to second, prompting him to choose the bottom lane on the restart, a decision he late regretted because that opened the door for Dotson restarting third on the outside.
“I was hoping for a caution more than anything, and then finally got one. Terbo picked the bottom and helped me out. I was able to wing the top,” said Dotson, who added in confidence that “was the best race car I ever had right there.”
As his competitors tailed off in speed down the stretch of the 30-lap feature, Dotson only grew stronger, posting eight laps in the 16-second bracket over the final 15 circuits while Pierce logged just three such laps. Top-five finishers Ryan Gustin, Erb and Jonathan Davenport never cracked the 16-second mark over that span, nor did O’Neal, who briefly led on lap 22.
“I was watching them guys, and I was running the top in one and two higher than they were, so I figured Bobby would protect the slider line into one, and then that’d give me a run,” Dotson said, walking through the lap-23 restart. “Biggest deal is getting him pinched off so I can hit the wall and traction off. It all worked out.”
Entering his second full season with the John Henderson-owned ASD team, Dotson feels stable for the first time in his Dirt Late Model career. In 2023, he raced a partial season for Texas-based Chris Bragg before linking up with Georgia-based Coltman Farms Racing, a partnership that ended midway through 2024. Henderson’s ASD team brought Dotson aboard late that season, leading to four victories in five races together in October and November 2024, including a $15,000 prelim triumph during East Alabama Motor Speedway’s National 100 weekend.
Dotson scored his first national touring victory on Illini 100 preliminary night last April, a win that at the time appeared to place him on the cusp of a breakout campaign. Instead, he went 63 races between victories, a drought that ended Wednesday in Casa Grande.
“That was probably the worst year racing I ever had in my life, and just super humbling. It’s just, it’s hard to pull yourself out of that, you know what I mean?” said Dotson, who finished 10th in World of Outlaws points. “You lose people, you lose crew guys. It’s tough to keep your chin up and keep going.”
That’s where Grecco and Mallory come into play. Grecco, the longtime crew chief for Tim McCreadie on the Sweeteners Plus team and now a Longhorn Chassis staffer, keeps Dotson mentally sharp while assisting the ASD race-day operation through Georgia-Florida Speedweeks. Mallory, a journeyman crew chief who had significant success with Scott Bloomquist, provides the team with plug-and-play speed secrets.
Dotson admitted some apprehension about bringing Grecco and Mallory together, but said the dynamic “is good and a lot better than I expected.”
“I was a little worried they wouldn’t work together good,” Dotson said through a laugh. “It just kinda all came together. The last month or two we’ve been working nonstop. We’ve pulled so many all-nighters building cars, trying to get everything right. We switched shocks to Ohlins this year, so this is the first week on them. It was a lot of work and stuff that went into it.”
Kevin Rumley, who’s spearheaded Longhorn’s transition to Ohlins Shocks and is fielding O’Neal’s car in Arizona, even popped his head into the ASD trailer postrace to offer a thumbs-up, smiling as he did so. Fellow Longhorn staffer Matt Langston has offered his consulting assistance to the ASD team this week, working hand-in-hand with Grecco as colleagues.
With an all-star supporting cast comes heightened expectations, a pressure Dotson embraces.
“They have a lot of years of experience and stuff that I don’t have, you know what I mean? I feel like I could get there, but the learning curve would take a lot longer,” Dotson said. “With these guys, it just speeds it up. Tommy can keep me out of my head. Cody working the car, they’ve been working good together. Just super pumped, especially to start out this strong after last year.”
A common criticism of Dotson is that he ought to drive harder, a notion he rebuts by noting that a driver can only push as hard as the car allows.
“That was as stuck as I’ve been,” Dotson said. “Everybody wants to tell me I need to drive harder, but when the car ain’t there, I’m not stupid. I’m not going to drive through the fence. If I have a car, I’ll drive it to the limit. If I don’t, I’m gonna get what I can out of it. And these guys finally gave me a car I could drive as hard as I wanted.”
Qualifying remains Dotson’s biggest challenge as he establishes himself in Dirt Late Model racing, a learning curve hampered by his background in IMCA modifieds where he didn’t time trial much.
“I feel like qualifying’s been my biggest struggle since Day One. When I grew up racing, we didn’t qualify, you pill-drawed,” he said. “So I feel like my race craft was better than my qualifying.
“I still got a lot of room to grow,” he added. “I’m not going to sit here and tell you I’m the best. I know I can get there, and I’m gonna keep working as hard as I can until I do it right.”
That determination is what drew Grecco to Dotson. Though not obligated to team up with Dotson for the interim, he’s compelled to mentor the maturing Californian in ways similar to how he guided Tim McCreadie to prominence. Grecco underscored Dotson’s work ethic, a demeanor that reminds him of a young McCreadie.
“When I met Ethan, he was sleeping in his truck and trailer, going to modified races, and winning by himself,” Grecco said. “And I'm very old school. I come from old school, so it reminded me of an old-school guy. Honestly, it reminded me of Timmy McCreadie back when he started being Timmy when we were big buddies. And I believe in Ethan. I really do.”
“I feel this shows that Ethan's talent is there in the right surroundings, not having to do it all by himself, and putting trust (in the people around him). One thing I do know for a fact, Ethan's always trusted me. And again, you know, it goes back to his first wins with the Coltman Farms team.”
“He is a good kid. He is a hard worker. He's not scared to get dirty, and he is talented,” Grecco continued. “He has a good drive, and he has the miserableness when he's not succeeding. He wants to succeed.”
Dotson and McCreadie, Grecco emphasized, “aren’t miserable people,” but that they just want to win that badly and often wear their losses on their firesuit sleeves.
“I see a lot of Ethan in a young Timmy, that’s why I do what I do with Ethan,” Grecco said. “If I didn't see him going to ever go forward, I wouldn't be here. The kid has always done it, and he works hard at it. He deserves it. He deserves to have an opportunity. It's his to fail now. John (Henderson) has supplied him with the best of the best.”
Grecco also praised Mallory's role on the team.
“Cody is a very knowledgeable guy, and it took us all to get together and get on the same page,” Grecco said. “And thankful for John, you know, he gave us the tools to do it. I mean, me included, just coming out here.”
If Dotson and his team can stay the course and routinely replicate Wednesday’s complete performance, balancing the mechanical and mental sides of the sport, 2026 has the makings of a special season.
“Just honestly, his confidence and him knowing that he can give me a race car capable to win,” Dotson said of Mallory. “It’s hard to find people like that. A lot of people are like, ‘Eh, I don't know if this is going to work. Maybe this, maybe that.’ They can be indecisive, but whenever he's confident and I can put my helmet on and go out there and just worry about driving my race car and not worry about all the other bulls— that goes with it. That’s just a super important thing.
“We’re going to put our noses down, do the work and try to win a couple more of these things.”
