NASCAR driver Austin Dillon is wheeling and dealing GM of a Professional Bull Riders team

It reminded Austin Dillon of fantasy football.

During the inaugural Professional Bull Riders Teams Series Draft in 2022, the new general manager of the Carolina Cowboys felt he had an advantage over the other executives despite being a newbie to the sport. He knew the format of a "snake draft," common in fantasy football. He knew the rhythm, the strategy.

Just like he does every August when heading into a fresh fantasy season, Dillon organized his notes on his iPad. He created a draft board.

The NASCAR driver has enjoyed some success in that arena.

“I think I'm rated gold on Yahoo. Maybe platinum, actually,” Dillon said of his fantasy football prestige. “I've got some championships.”

His goal for the PBR draft was similar: build a championship roster.

Dillon and the Cowboys made their first two picks in the five-round event. Then, he got on the phone and assembled a blockbuster.

He sent his first two selections, Cody Jesus and João Ricardo Vieira, to the Texas Rattlers for their first two choices. One was second-rounder Mason Taylor. The other?

2022 PBR World Champion Daylon Swearingen.

It was the first trade in PBR history.

“I'm trying to make a deal, always,” Dillon said.

Just like fantasy football.

Austin Dillon’s grandfather, Richard Childress, owns Carolina Cowboys

Dillon has never ridden a bull. He won’t even consider it until his racing career is over.

“Those guys are way crazier than me,” the 35-year-old said.

But his grandpa?

“I was in Africa and had a little alcohol to do it with it,” Richard Childress said. “And I decided I’m going to get on this bull and ride it. 

“I might’ve lasted a second and a half. It was just a fun deal with a buddy over in Africa. That was in the ’90s.”

Childress had long been a fan of PBR, which was founded in 1992. He still has photos of his grandsons, Austin and Ty, as little kids, standing with renowned cowboy Ty Murray at a rodeo from the late-1990s.

Austin now drives the No. 3 Chevrolet for Richard Childress Racing. Ty also competes in the Cup Series, piloting the No. 10 Chevy for Kaulig Racing.

In 2019, nearly 30 years after PBR launched, the organization’s CEO, Sean Gleason, called Childress. He wanted to meet with Childress, owner and operator of RCR in NASCAR since 1969, because Gleason had an idea.

He was thinking about introducing a team series in PBR. Each squad would feature five riders on a given night. The team with the highest total ride score would win.

The duo exchanged ideas.

Gleason and PBR searched for potential markets and came up with eight, including Charlotte. Childress was interested in ownership. 

“We saw the success it was going to be,” he said.

But that included a caveat.

He’d buy the franchise only if Dillon agreed to work in it. Dillon did.

Originally, the team was going to hold the name “Carolina Chaos,” but Childress rejected that. Dillon came up with a better moniker: “Carolina Cowboys.”

They hired Jerome Davis, 1995 Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association bull riding world champion and co-founder of PBR, as head coach. 

Despite living about 30 minutes from each other in North Carolina, Childress, Dillon and Davis met in New York to discuss the opportunity in early 2022.

Almost immediately, Davis realized he and Dillon would get along just fine.

“We sat down that morning, and before we got ready to eat, Austin wanted to know if we wanted to bless the food,” Davis said. “And I thought, ‘You know what? I think these are my kind of people.’ It was from then on that I can say Austin is one of my best friends.”

PBR legend Jerome Davis helped Austin Dillon get up to speed

Dillon dove in right away.

He had to. He had attended rodeos as a fan and watched bull riding on TV. But he didn’t know many of the statistics and techniques behind the sport.

That’s where Davis enters.

“I have answered a lot of questions,” Davis said.

Dillon also dedicated himself to hours of film and research. Again, he whipped out the iPad, saving his notes there.

“I enjoy working with Austin just because he has a passion for our sport,” Davis said. “He wants to grow our sport and make it better than what it is. That’s really cool.”

Part of what helped Dillon learn the ropes was the newness of everything — there were no precedents to follow in a start-up league. For example, the first contracts Dillon negotiated were some of the first agreements in league history.

Most of Dillon’s job centers around the roster. He, Davis and assistant coach Robson Palermo put their heads together and devise their agenda. What holes does the team need to fill? Who could fill them?

It’s Dillon’s responsibility to pick up the phone and turn those ideas into reality. He did that with the Swearingen trade during the inaugural draft.

“We're trying to look at what we need to make our team better, make the locker room better,” Dillon said. “The biggest thing is giving Jerome options to be able to cover as many types of bulls as possible. So if we're struggling with a certain type of bull, we need to go out and get a guy that can ride that bull. 

“You want to feel like, in any game, that you can cover five for five, every opportunity that you have a bull. We've kind of put our mindset to that.”

So what are they looking for? What makes a good bull rider?

“The main thing is, they’ve just got to be gritty and they’ve got to be tough,” Davis said. “We want to have guys that want to win but guys that ain’t gonna turn loose. If they don’t fall in that category, we don’t need them. I tell them at the beginning (of the season), ‘If they’re not in it to give it everything they’ve got, they’re on the wrong team.’ ”

They look for competitors like Clay Guiton.

Last offseason, when the Cowboys lost seven-time PRCA world champion Sage Kimzey to Texas in free agency, Dillon orchestrated another stunner.

He acquired Guiton, one of the top youngsters in the sport, from the Oklahoma Wildcatters for Carolina’s first-round picks in 2025 and 2026 and cash.

“I thought, ‘Boy, it’s going to be hard to fill them shoes,’” Davis said of Kimzey. “Then, (Dillon) comes up with this hotshot 19-year-old that’s top-10 in the world, and we get him signed. I have to give credit to Austin. He got in there and made it all happen.”

Childress added: “(Guiton) is a superstar. Austin, how he pulled that off, nobody can understand how we ended up with him, but he did a great job at doing that. He talked to me about it, and my partner, and we both said go for it. He made a very gutsy move — I’ll put it like that — that will pay off.”

Not bad for a guy doing his side job.

Dillon remains fully committed to racing. He holds Cowboys GM meetings on Wednesdays and usually has free time in the evenings to call Davis and review the latest happenings.

The rest of the week belongs to his NASCAR career.

Because the PBR Teams Series season runs from July through October, right through the second half of the Cup Series season, Dillon attends only a couple of Cowboys events per year. 

He was on site for the first night of their season-opening weekend in mid-July in Oklahoma. Carolina began with a 2-1 record.

Entering this weekend’s festivities in Sunrise, Florida, the Cowboys (3-2) sat third in the 10-team standings.

“It's a roller coaster watching these guys, for sure,” Dillon said. “You can't hide the emotions at a bull ride. It's unique. If you're hiding them, you're faking it.”

Last year, Carolina finished as league runner-up, falling to the Austin Gamblers in the championship game. They kicked off the campaign with an 11-game win streak.

“It was an awesome year,” Dillon said. “Obviously, we want to bring home some hardware, and I think we have the team to do it.”

“This, to me, is the best team we’ve ever had,” Davis said.

“... With Austin being our general manager, I don’t think there’s another guy in the league that works harder at what he does to get us to where we want to be.”

Is Austin Dillon the NASCAR successor to Richard Childress at RCR?

Here’s the question.

Is being the general manager of the Carolina Cowboys a training ground? Is it a trial run for Austin Dillon before potentially controlling Richard Childress Racing in the future?

“I definitely think it can be,” Dillon said. “It's been very helpful. I'm happy either way. I'm enjoying driving race cars, enjoying being a part of the Carolina Cowboys, and seeing those guys win is a blast for me. I get fired up.”

Childress wanted him to get this PBR experience.

“Someday, RCR is going to be at a different level,” the 79-year-old said. “I’m not going to be here forever, and I want him to understand how it is to deal with riders, the sanctioning body, the whole deal. He’s really adapted to it well.”

Both Dillon and Childress view many of the managerial skills as transferable between the sports.

“The biggest thing is, we have drivers over here and they have riders over there,” Childress said. “You have to deal with agents and contracts, and they’re constantly changing the rules — NASCAR and PBR — to make both sports better. I just think Austin has really adapted to that.”

Dillon feels like has, too. He’s gotten more comfortable with handling an organization’s budget, assessing risks, communicating with people from the top to the bottom and delegating due to his busy schedule.

Since Dillon took on his GM gig, he and Childress talk more about the inner workings of RCR.

“I hope to implement, one day, some of the stuff we've done with the Cowboys to be successful at RCR,” Dillon said. “I think I have an advantage with the fact that I have a sports background in racing. So being able to talk to some of these riders and understand the ups and downs of what they go through and the grind that they're in constantly, mentally, physically, I think I can relate with them, which gives me an advantage over some of the other GMs. 

“One day, I could probably have that same advantage at RCR when it comes to just knowing what everyone is going through, because you've been in the driver seat.”

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: NASCAR driver Austin Dillon wheels and deals as PBR general manager