MILWAUKEE, Wis. Since he made his ASA National Tour debut in 2003 and then joined the ASA Late Model Series in 2005, Travis Dassow has made many steps in his racing career. The young Wisconsin driver has crossed goals off his to-do list along the way.

Series regular, pole sitter, track record-holder, race winner, championship contender those were all titles that Dassow earned. After this weekends ASA Late Model Challenge Series event at Five Flags Speedway in Pensacola, Florida, Dassow has checked the ultimate ASA accomplishment off his list though. Travis Dassow is now a champion of the series.

That leaves the 20-year-old nearly speechless.

Its just awesome, just everything this teams done for me and everything else, its justWow! said Dassow. The first time I started an ASA race four years ago, it was just the ultimate dream to win this ASA championship. Its just an awesome feeling. Its indescribable right now, just really unbelievable.

Dassows TD Racing Development team evolved from the WalTom Racing Development team that won ASA LM titles in 2005 and 2006 with current NASCAR Busch Series drivers Stephen Leicht and Kelly Bires respectively. But the team had undergone several changes before the 2007 season and the competition bar in ASA LM racing had gotten higher, so Dassow was far from a lock when it came to handicapping the 2007 championship race. That helped take the pressure off for him.

When I jumped in, there was pressure there, but there wasnt. My parents and a couple of investors that put into it didnt put any pressure on me. We knew that the last two years the team won the championship, but were still pretty much a startup team. We have nowhere near the budget as what WalTom used to have and everything else. We knew it was going to be a tough road and it started off good and just kept on rolling.

Almost lost in the fact of Dassow winning the championship on Saturday night was the fact that he did so by earning a third-place podium finish in the race at Five Flags Speedway. Just by starting the race, Dassow clinched the title, so he knew that he could stop counting points and concentrate on racing his #89 machine instead.

It was definitely relaxing knowing that we clinched. When we took the green flag, my spotter congratulated me and said alright, now lets go get them. I think we needed a caution in that second half to catch us back up to those guys, and I think we would have had something for them. We didnt get that chance, but well take the top-three finish and go on.

Winning the championship might put an exclamation point on Dassows season, but it doesnt put a period on it though. He still has a few more races planned for the fall.

Were going to Lacrosse (WI) next week, and then Im going to try the Truck race on October 20th at Martinsville, so Im really looking forward to that, and hopefully continue having some success down South.

For more information on the TD Racing Development team, call Mike Twist at (207) 590-1786 and be sure to check out the TD Racing Development website at www.TDRace.net.