Coming off a solid campaign at Sunset Speedway, Jason D’Antimo enters the upcoming 2024 season with optimism on his side.

“I think it will be a good season at Sunset for the mini stocks and the fans,” he told SHORT TRACK MUSINGS. “I think I have seen some posts with young drivers coming to run the full schedule (think Jake Spencer-Walt and Ryder White), and I think I saw Johnny Paradzinski is also planning on a full schedule run. That should mix things up a bit and keep it interesting. As a team and driver, we are working away in the shop to improve our performance on track.”

This past season, D’Antimo put together a solid campaign with the No. 23 Neon en route to five top-five’s and eight top-10’s throughout the summer.

“Overall it was a difficult season but I’m mostly happy with the fourth-place points finish,” he reflected. “I really felt the team was going to be able to grind out a third place points finish last year. We chased all year and kept motivated despite the bad luck and some mistakes on my part that put us behind in the points. I think it would have felt better to finish 30 points behind third place, instead of two points behind.”

When looking at things he needs to improve upon for the year ahead, D’Antimo notes limiting his contact with the inside turn four wall will certainly help the team’s efforts, after spending “a lot of time last year just fixing the car and not enough time trying to finesse it.” It is why he says they are spending time this off-season looking at things they had hoped to try in 2023 to hopefully “come out of the box strong” this year.

For D’Antimo, the want to get behind the wheel came from his father George D’Antimo Sr. racing at Pinecrest and other local tracks through the early 1950s and 1960s. With having spent years around the track with his family, he says the fondest memories come from spending time with family doing something everyone is passionate about.

“I didn’t get to see my Dad race and was still pretty young when my brother was racing,” he commented. “I do remember thinking it was pretty cool when my brother ran with CASCAR at the CNE, the stadium gave it that feeling we were big time. The one I’m looking forward to the most is winning my first feature and getting than team / family photo with the checkered flag.”

Moving beyond, D’Antimo admits he would like to “turn some laps in a super stock or late model just to have that experience,” but states the expense, amount of knowledge, and level of competition is a barrier as to why he has not done so yet.

As others look to follow in the past track champion’s success, he states a good place to get started would be either go-karting or the bone stock division.

“If you have the resources and mechanical skills just jump in and do it,” he said. “If your more conservative or need to learn some of the mechanical skills, see if you can volunteer to work as a team member on a car. You will learn a lot and get a feel for the amount of commitment needed to run a car.”