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COPPERAS COVE, Texas — Consistency was the story of Dustin Mooney’s drive to Sunoco IMCA Stock Car Regional Rookie of the Year honors in 2020.
Taking a page from that same book, he raced to the EQ Cylinder Heads Southern Region championship this season.
Mooney combined 20 top-five finishes with the track title at Cotton Bowl Speedway in earning his career first regional crown.
“It’s pretty crazy,” acknowledged Mooney, from Copperas Cove and also a first-time Texas State champion in The Class Too Tough To Tame.
“I would definitely have wanted to win some of those races I feel I could have (he finished second in five of his 35 outings) but consistency is more important when you’re running for a track or regional championship,” he continued. “I felt it was better to get the best finish I could rather than getting caught up in something I shouldn’t and winding up 15th or 17th at the end of the night.”
Mooney ran junior minis, a Smiley’s Racing Products Southern SportMod and winged modifieds before getting into a Stock Car, trading a winged modified chassis for his first Stock Car ride.
He’s had some big race success in the Southern SportMod and made 17 IMCA Speedway Motors Weekly racing starts in that division in 2024, getting back in a Stock Car in a 2022 Florio Racing Chassis … more on his connection to that famed Lone Star State racing family in a bit … this season.
“Last year I was racing more for wins. There wasn’t any goal or a specific championship I was really racing for. I set goals in 2025 and running two tracks every weekend, we tried to keep our nose clean each night,” Mooney explained. “I went to Abilene for the Ice Breaker at the start of the year, we ran good and finished with a second and a third.”
“I think we could have won the first night, but we gave it away. It was early but we were sitting good and that’s when I decided to run for the region,” he’d add. “I knew I’d need a track championship, so we decided to race Waco on Friday nights and Paige on Saturdays. That’s when I knew I’d have to stay cool, calm and collected, and just have good, solid top five finishes.”
Runner-up at Heart O’ Texas Speedway and 12th nationally, Mooney makes his living doing fleet maintenance for the City of Copperas Cove. He learned the importance of turning wrenches right as a young age, watching races at the old Thunderbird Raceway in Crandall, where his father Brent ran a Modified and grandfather R. Lee was in charge of tech.
“We put a premium on maintenance. As soon as we were done on Saturday night, we were in the shop washing the race car. We’d nut and bolt everything, getting ready and getting the car back on the trailer,” said Mooney, aided by a crew that included fiancée Taylor Florio IMCA Southern SportMod national rookie of the year in 2015 and her parents and his chassis builders Chris and Tracy. “Every Sunday the car would be 100 percent race-ready for the next weekend.”
Matt Guillaume, a three-time EQ Cylinder Heads Southern Region king and a familiar foe, was second in this year’s points race. Top rookie contender Casey Murdoch ended third.
“Matt is a great competitor, a great guy and he races hard every week. He races on his stuff and works on it just as hard as we do,” Mooney said. “It was definitely more stressful toward the end of the season because points started getting tight, but I knew as long as I was consistent and did my duties in the car that we would be A-OK.”
Taylor teaches second grade at Hanna Springs Elementary in Lampasas. She and Dustin will get married next April 18, one of the dates Mooney already has marked on his 2026 calendar.
“Super Nationals is on my bucket list,” he said. “Maybe we’ll get to Boone next year.”
