Editor's note: This article first appeared on DirtonDirt on April 27 and is being rerun ahead of June 7-15's Appalachian Mountain Speedweek.

During routine prerace maintenance in April at Hagerstown Speedway, Dale Hollidge figured he’d drop off his right-rear shock at the Fox Shocks hauler that services select Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series teams and non-series competitors alike.

Racing only twice so far this year, the 36-year-old wanted an inspection of his right-rear shock he’s had since last July. The company’s representative returned to Hollidge’s pit a short while later with his reassembled shock and an update.

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“He said I was three (shock package) versions behind,” said Hollidge, who was alarmed how outdated his one shock assembly had been. “I was like, ‘How am I supposed to know that?’”

The Mechanicsville, Md., native isn’t one bit knocking the shock brand that’s “been a big help” for his family-oriented team. It’s just that he’s “not out there racing enough to be in the know.”

“That makes it harder to show up to races like this and try to run with these guys who are really on it,” Hollidge said before he failed to qualify for April’s Lucas Oil feature. “I mean, they have engineers, they’ve been in wind tunnels. We’re just a little family-run deal. But that doesn’t deter us. We’re going to work that much harder.”

After nearly two years away from Super Late Model racing while being unsure if he’d ever return to the open-competition engine ranks, Hollidge has brought back his familiar black No. 0 Rocket Chassis to the Mid-Atlantic scene in 2025. 

He didn’t walk away from Dirt Late Model racing the last two years, but instead made a more financially cognizant decision to race select Steel Block and Crate events for brother-in-law Tommy Armel. Hollidge’s last Super ride was in 2022 for Maryland car owner Bruce Kane, who now fields the No. 15k for Wil Herrington of Hawkinsville, Ga.

As he found out, Hollidge couldn’t be away from racing high-level Super events very long, especially after he nearly captured Potomac Speedway’s $4,000-to-win Huey Wilcoxen Memorial last Labor Day weekend with a smaller 380 cubic inch engine. Hollidge lost by a 0.092 of a second to Trevor Collins.

“That gave me the itch even worse. I was like, ‘We have to go back Super racing,’” said Hollidge, who competed in the open-competition engine ranks from 2007-23. “We just had to figure it out somehow and make it all work. If I wanna race, this is where I wanna be.”

A modest 20-race schedule will “probably be enough” for the former World of Outlaws Real American Late Model Series feature winner. Hollidge’s days of logging 60-plus races, much less 40 or even 30 events on his own means, aren’t very feasible anymore.

The biggest reason Hollidge has returned to the Super Late Model scene is because he bought an engine from Lucas Oil traveler Ross Robinson at a price that made sense for him. Outside that, he has a smaller 380 cubic inch engine that can hold its own on slicker, slower tracks and serves as a nice backup. But without the engine he purchased from Robinson’s team, there’s no way he could enter this weekend’s Lucas Oil competition and expect to be remotely competitive.

“We only have this motor (purchased from Robinson) and then that little one,” Hollidge said. “Once we lap this big one out, it’ll put us in a jam. We’re going to do some (Appalachian Mountain) Speedweek races and Jim (Bernheisel’s) fall stuff (the Fall Clash), (Delaware’s) Georgetown (Speedway), Potomac (Speedway in Budds Creek, Md.), whatever they run here (at Hagerstown). See how this year goes and see where we can from there.”

In his heyday, especially when he assembled ambitious regional schedules of 50-60 races with former Winchester, Va.-based car owner Greg Gunter from 2015-20, Hollidge could enter a national touring event expecting to contend. Only three years ago, he was on the pole of the $50,000-to-win Rumble by the River feature on the Lucas Oil tour at Port Royal (Pa.) Speedway. He even won Aug. 2013’s WoO event at Winchester (Va.) Speedway in his first-ever feature start with the national tour.

But nowadays, he’s “just trying to stay on top of the curve” and the ever-changing technological side of Dirt Late Model racing.

“It’s hard for a guy who doesn’t race on the tour to stay up-to-date as fast as everything changes,” said Hollidge, whose location in Southern Maryland limits his travels.

Hagerstown and Winchester were once Hollidge’s go-to racetracks. Now Hagerstown only has four open-competition engine events on its 2025 schedule, including April’s Lucas Oil race, while Winchester has two such events.

The closest weekly Super Late Model track to Hollidge anymore is Bedford (Pa.) Speedway three hours away from his home base in Southern Maryland. Port Royal, the site of Sunday’s Lucas Oil stop, is more than four hours away for Hollidge. 

“It’s changed a lot around here. Most tracks only race (Supers) three or four times in a year,” Hollidge said. “Other than that, you have to travel up and down the road.

“We’re still green with the Super. Supers don’t race around here much anymore. It’s tough unless you want to drive four or five hours. Even for me to go to Port for a regular show, it’s over four hours. It’s a little bit tough on that.”

Since 2015, Hollidge has primarily driven for a car owner. First it was Gunter for six seasons through 2020, then Kane for two years through ’22. Fielding a Super entry himself isn’t ideal, but he knows what he’s getting involved in.

“There’s two things when funding this deal yourself: it has to be fun and it has to be cost-effective,” Hollidge said. “The cost-effective part is gone, and no one can really control that. That’s the whole country in general. The problem is, you’re spending so much money, it ain’t fun. And people don’t wanna do it. I think that deters a lot of regional guys.

“A lot of them have stepped away because of the cost. Why would I spend $40,000 or $50,000 on a motor when I can’t race but 10-12 times a year? It’s a product of a couple things that have evolved with time.”

Hollidge is glad to see Jonestown, Pa.’s Jim Bernheisel step up to provide Appalachian Mountain Speedweek and the newly created Fall Clash for a combined 18 Super events around the Northeast all offering at least $5,000-to-win, with five paying double-figures.

In terms of Super teams in the Northeast, “I would like to see some of it come back, but as far as regular shows on the Super Late Model side, it’s too hard to overcome.”

“The car counts aren’t there,” Hollidge said. “The racetracks can’t pay the big purses. They can’t do a weekly big purse. That makes it even tougher.”

Hollidge has seen firsthand how challenging it can be to operate a racetrack these days. His parents, Denise and Ronnie Hollidge, managed Potomac Speedway in Budds Creek, Md., for the last 17 years until David Williams took over the 3/8-mile oval last winter.

“It was time. Things change. People think they know how to run a racetrack, but it’s not that easy,” Hollidge said. “Definitely a lot of stress has been relieved. It gives us a little more free time to go to the beach or go race.”

For Hollidge, his racing schedule simply consists of “whatever makes sense.”

“I don’t have to go race because I’m very busy with work,” said Hollidge, who runs his own fabrication shop. “If we get time to go race, we’ll go do it. If they’re calling for 70 percent chance of rain, I’m not leaving the house. I don’t have to go anymore like I used to.”

If there’s an end goal Hollidge does have this year, it’s having enough laps left in his primary motor to make the trip toward Concord, N.C., in November for the World Finals at The Dirt Track at Charlotte.

“If we have enough stuff, I think you’ll see us down there at the end of the year,” said Hollidge, who looks to be more competitive in the near future than this past weekend with the Lucas Oil regulars.

His first race of the year was March 28 at Georgetown’s Mark “Coot” Williams Memorial where he found out “we were pretty good” in finishing eighth amid a 15-car feature. But at the Delaware half-mile for Friday’s Lucas Oil Series event, Hollidge encountered some troubles where “we were bottoming out hard” and “tore the nose off of it."

“Got behind and never could recover,” added Hollidge, who finished five spots short of a transfer Friday at Georgetown.

April at Hagerstown, he missed the feature by one spot as he finished fourth in the second B-main. Hollidge hopes it won’t be too long until he finds his footing again, at least in the Super, but one thing’s certain.

“It’s hard for me to get out of it as much as I love it,” Hollidge said. “We’ll just keep working ahead, and we’ll get things right. We’re trying to keep it funded enough to keep going. And hopefully we’re headed in the right direction.”