ROSSBURG, Ohio (June 6) — Pitted in the far reaches of Eldora Speedway’s upper pit area, back behind the green-lit helipad where the track’s PA announcements are faint and its haloed lights are distant, Timothy Culp’s cell phone was blowing up.

The Prattsville, Ark., driver had yet to talk to wife Shannon. And he hadn’t checked any of the texts from longtime friends. But he could guess what many of the text messages would say: “You're still racing?”

For those Culp couldn’t respond to immediately, yes he’s still racing, and yes he’s still got talent and potential, even if he’s limited his Dirt Late Model competition to an average of eight or so races apiece over the past four seasons.

The 34-year-old Culp, the 2019 Comp Cams Super Dirt Series champion, displayed his prowess in one of Friday’s Dream XXXI preliminaries at the legendary half-mile oval, starting on the pole and posting an impressive fifth-place finish in the $30,000-to-win race captured by Jonathan Davenport, winner of the Eldora’s two previous Dreams and three overall.

In some ways, the part-timer Culp knows he doesn’t belong in a field of such talented drivers, believing most Eldora fans probably thought his No. C8 Capital Race Car had no business swapping spots with Davenport, runner-up Brandon Overton, third-place finisher Ricky Thornton, or any of the other drivers in the top 10, all current or past national touring competitors.

“I’m probably not even supposed to be out there with these guys,” said Culp, making just his sixth start of the year after arriving at Eldora at 4 a.m., 48 hours after most Dream entrants, half on their third night of racing.

But there was Culp, mixing it up with some of the sport’s best racers, and clawing back for a top-five finish after slipping back to seventh from laps 40-44.

"I didn't fall out of the seat or get mad at myself or anything, you know,” Culp said. “I just said, ‘Come on, I know I can do this,’ and just buckled back down and went back work.”

Culp, and anyone who paid attention to the Louisiana native during a Late Model career that stretches back to 2010, knows he can do it, too. He’s got 11 career Comp Cams tour victories to go with his single championship, and was a regular threat in other regional action.

He led 33 laps of a DIRTcar Summer Nationals feature in 2014 at Clayhill Motorsports Park in Atwood, Tenn., before mechanical woes forced him to fade. He captured a World of Outlaws Real American Beer Late Model Series triumph in 2017 at Lone Star Speedway in Kilgore, Texas, and he made a short-lived bid to chase WoO’s rookie title in 2018.

He’s been an occasional entrant at Eldora’s major events, cracking the World 100 starting field in 2016 (he broke a motor after 20 laps) and in 2017 was on the verge of starting on the pole of the Dream when a broken driveshaft cost him a heat race victory at the white flag.

But for Culp, that was then and this is now. A driver who years ago flirted with the idea of being a full-time driver, starting an average of nearly 30 races per season from 2014-21, now has commitments with Bennings Heating & Air, the business operated by his father-in-law Mike Bennings. He also has family commitments to his wife Shannon, who also works at the HVAC firm, and his 4-year-old son Cannon.

"I didn't race Late Models for like a whole year and then when I came back I said man, I'm just gonna go have fun and do kind of race the stuff that I wanna race,” Culp said during a postrace interview. "I'm not trying to prove anything to anybody else, but prove to myself that I know I can compete. I kind of have a different mindset than the first go-around when I was trying to do this deal.

“I'm just having fun,” said Culp, whose lone crew member Tyler Burnett was making his first racing trip for Culp. “I don't know, like I said, just got a different mindset kind of more focused on just driving the race car instead of, you know, blaming little things here and there — the car wasn't good, whatever — just take what I got and make the best of it.”

His main goal now? "I wanna make all them proud back at home,” Culp said, his voice cracking when he mentions young Cannon. (“He’s ate up with it. He would love to be here. He'd be climbing on the roof right now,” Culp added).

Culp’s racing aspirations take a back seat to life, but that makes him no less eager to perform well.

In his 20s, Culp spent so much time racing, traveling to races or working on the car that he had little time of the HVAC business. After Covid-era struggles cost the company employees, Culp decided he wanted to provide his 61-year-old father-in-law a path to eventual retirement. Bennings and the Culps have helped grow the business over the past seven years, the last of which he and Shannon spent building a new family home.

"I mean, the racing stuff is important to me, but it is kinda, it plays second fiddle to work for sure. But I have a lot of really good guys at at work right now and they're making it where I can kind of get out and do some of this,” said Culp, who logged work hours earlier in the week instead of arriving at Eldora on Tuesday. “Not that I have to be there, but I wanna be there. Like I said, me and her are really we're proud of kind of what we've grown. Mark's still really every-day operations, he oversees everything still, but we're just trying to soak as much as we can.”

Culp dedicated his Eldora run to his father-in-law’s lifelong best friend, Tom Booth, who died Friday morning.

"I texted him before we started and told him I would try to run good for him tonight,” Culp said, “so it's a little special.”

Amid Culp’s limited racing schedule, conquering Eldora is on his list.

"If something kind of kicks me down, I gotta go back,” Culp said, remembering his 2016-17 Eldora attempts. “So ever since then, it's kind of just been in my mind that I wanna get back up here and prove that I can do it.”

While he didn’t compete in Wednesday’s FloRacing Night in America program, arriving early Friday morning, he studied FloRacing video and “tried to watch as many laps as I could, the fast guys, the lines they’re running,” he said.

“I mean it's not like I've ever been slow here,” he said. “This place is just tough, you know? You gotta do everything right. Like tonight, I didn't tear anything up. I kind of kept my nose clean.

"There were several times I could have made more aggressive moves and probably advanced my position, but in the grand scheme of things, it's not worth blowing through the cushion and knocking the tire off, you know? Kind of taking what I can get and being smart and knowing my car is good enough where I can at least maintain where I'm at and not fall out of the seat. So that was kind of my gameplan once we got going.

“All those guys that were passing me have either won races here or always run really good here, so I was trying to learn on all those restarts kind of the lines and stuff they're picking.”

Culp, whose March 15 victory at Springfield (Mo.) Raceway was his first on the Comp Cams circuit in four years, is grateful for the opportunity to continue racing.

"I mean, when you go to work every day, this is like a vacation for me,” he said. “So I wanna have fun, but having fun would be running up front, being competitive. I don't wanna come out here and just be a guy here. I wouldn't have came if I didn't think I was capable of running good.

“Ever since I got these Capital cars last year, they've had speed. They've all kept me in the loop, and I don't even work on it. Just, whatever they tell me to put on it, that's what I put on it, and I just drive it and try to be really smooth with the steering wheel and the pedals and just do all the little things right that I feel like I used to overlook.”

After the race, Culp visited the turn-one pit area of Capital Race Cars co-owner Shane Clanton, who made a 16th-to-ninth run in the same race and was impressed by Culp’s effort. They discussed ways to make their cars faster for Saturday, when Culp will start third in the third heat and Clanton, a former Dream winner, will start on the pole of the sixth heat.

“We’re not far off, but we're off just a little bit. We're gonna try to make it better tomorrow,” Clanton said, adding that “hopefully the help that we're giving him will parlay into a lot of wins.”

Culp has raced with top-notch competition enough over his career to not be intimidated, especially because he believes in his equipment.

“Driving these things is hard, but they put their firesuit on just like I do — one leg at a time — so you know anybody here is capable of driving these things. It’s just making all the right decisions,” he said. “I had a lot of fun tonight. I'm proud of how we ran. I’m sure my phone's blowing up because a lot of people don't even think I still race. Like people see me and they're like, ‘I didn’t even know you still raced!’

“I mean, I raced 10 times last year in a Late Model — which is not a lot — but I mean, to me, it's a lot of work. I mean, I feel like I'm racing a lot but I'm not because I'm doing a lot of it myself, which I enjoy it. I enjoy every aspect of the racing. When I started back racing Late Models, it's in my blood. It's not something I can just give up. But I just wanna go have fun with it, run good races when I can and just make all my (attempts) count.”

Culp said he made “a few silly mistakes” in the 50-lap feature, but he managed to lead eight laps and post a respectable performance.

"This place is just so technical and I mean I know that it's just a mindset. I mean I know I can drive with these guys and my car's capable. I have the same equipment they do,” he said. “I just have to execute basically and I just didn't do a very good job there five or six laps and let J.D. get by me, which, I mean, he's the best in the business here. And then all those restarts, every one of them, I was just learning more and more and more and by the end, I was holding my own and picking guys back off. So hopefully you know carry some momentum in tomorrow. Nothing’s tore up. I made a little money, so I'm happy.”

In battling with a field of many professional drivers, “I'm just happy to be out here competing and finally have a little luck at Eldora and have some speed, too, so hopefully we can keep building off of it,” Culp said. "A lot of it is Capital (and) Shane. I mean, they've all took great care of me and got me in a car that's capable.”