Since his first title in 2021, Dillon Raffurty has remained the national IMCA mod lite champion, earning honors in 2022, 2023, and 2024. Raffurty did so in a car he, his brother, Mike, and his father, David, built from scratch.
After the 2021 IMCA awards banquet, David passed away after contracting Covid. Dillon and his brother took over their father’s excavation business and for the first time raced without the patriarch of the racing operation.
“Over the years he had always been there,” Dillon, of Kansas City, Missouri, said. “We had to learn what he was able to do. [Mike] does all the mechanical work, I do the welding and fabrication. It still is tough at times not having him around. When there’s a question, we would like to discuss with him, but he’s not there.”
Dillon learned quick. He continued winning. Last year alone, Dillon won 33 out of 43 features. He won track championships at a pair of Missouri dirt ovals — Electric City Speedway and Valley Speedway. In fact, Dillon missed the top five just once, when he drove his brother’s car at Marshalltown Speedway in Iowa.
“That happened as the result of a 300-lb. driver, me, getting into a 175-lb driver’s car, my brother’s, without changing anything,” said Dillon.
Dillon Raffurty used his brother’s car because he wrecked his.
“Crashing it is something that hurts,” Dillon said. “It’s definitely emotional. At Marshalltown Speedway, there was a pileup. I worried that the car would be junk. We replaced the front clip and the car was fine — it kept on winning and keeps on going.”
The Raffurty family built actually two mod lites. They sold one, but they have recently bought it back.
“Michael will drive it next year,” said Dillon. “It will be an interesting and sentimental journey next season for the two of us.”
Mike Adaskaveg has written hundreds of stories since the website’s inception. This year marks his 54th year of covering auto racing. Adaskaveg got his start working for track photographer Lloyd Burnham at Connecticut’s Stafford Motor Speedway in 1970. Since then, he’s been a columnist, writer, and photographer, in racing and in mainstream media, for several outlets, including the Journal Inquirer, Boston Herald, Stock Car Racing, and Speedway Illustrated. Among Adaskaveg’s many awards are the 1992 Eastern Motorsport Press Association (EMPA) Ace Lane Photographer of the Year and the 2019 National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) George Cunningham Writer of the Year.
