RACER, MAYOR, SALESMAN, FAMILY MAN Spare time not easy to find for Cisney

Story by Harold Raker

If this is racing season, Dylan Cisney is busier than a makeup artist at a Kiss concert.

You think you can keep up?

Consider:

Cisney is a fulltime 410 sprint car driver with a 75-race schedule this year and a baby on the way.

He is employed as a traveling salesman by his car sponsor, Valley Supply, which sells construction materials.

He is remodeling his home in Port Royal to make room for the family addition, due in June.

Oh, and he is also the current mayor of Port Royal and is on the ballot in next month’s primary election.

OK, you can pause to take a breath.

He and his wife Maggie have two sons, Connor, 11, and Mason, 2. The 31-year-old has been racing (starting in gokarts) since he was 7. In 2010, as a 17-year-old Juniata High School senior, he raced a 410 sprint car for the first time.

But he ran a full-sized race car when he was 15.

“I was driving a full-sized race car before I was able to drive a street car,” Cisney said.

After racing go-karts for nearly 14 years, Cisney moved into the super sportsman, the main class at the now defunct Silver Spring Speedway near Mechanicsburg, which included running fulltime in the Super Sportsman touring series. Cisney also raced a 600cc dirt modified.

Cisney never lost hope that his dream of racing a 410 would eventually come true. He came close, racing a 360 sprint car at the famed Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio, a track owned by two-time NASCAR champion Tony Stewart.

“My dream has always been to race in NASCAR,” he said. “My means of getting there was to drive a sprint car and I’ve had that opportunity over the last 14 years. I’ve gotten the chance to be in the racing business, and I’ve made a lot of friends.”

He added, I’ve grown up with some of my heroes like Tony Stewart and Kasey Kahne and it wasn’t too many years ago that I was watching those guys on TV and now I get to race with them and call them friends, that’s a pretty close second.”

His interest in racing began with his dad, David, who raced go-karts for many years, mostly at the local track, Seven Stars Speedway near Thompsontown.

When his dad decided to retire from kart racing, Dylan joined him for his final year.

“We both had our own go-kart and trailer that year and he did most of the work on them,” Dylan said.

“After one year of that, dad hung it up and turned into a fulltime owner for the next 21 or 22 years,” he said.

His dad owned the karts, and also bought his modified sportsman and finally the 410 in 2010. David’s final season as a car owner was 2021, when Dylan got an offer he couldn’t refuse.

Veteran Wisconsin sprint car owner Scott Cowman, who had been involved with the Cisneys’ racing operation for several years, gave Dylan the chance to race his car.

At the time, Dylan was racing the family car as well as some shows with Cowman’s car.

Both cars were being run out of the Cisneys’ race shop, but there were two separate teams and two of everything from trucks to tools to pit buggies to ties.

“Things were working out but it was a lot of extra work to keep track of everything” Dylan said. “So when Scott presented me the opportunity we decided that would be the way to go.”

Dylan didn’t betray the boss’ confidence in him. The team drove 13 hours to run a pair of races near Cowman’s hometown in Wisconsin and Dylan won both.

But it was not all fun and games that year.

Dylan unwillingly became part of a widely viewed internet video last fall when he was involved in a death-defying crash in the annual Tuscarora 50 race at Port Royal. Cisney’s car tangled with another, flipped upside down and caught fire.

Fellow racers Danny Dietrich and Logan Wagner, along with track safety crew members, rushed to free him from the burning wreckage.

Yet, Cisney, thankful for the quick work of everyone involved, never gave a thought to walking away from racing.

“I was in the shop the next morning limping around and getting things moved around and getting the car cleaned up,” he said.

“We took the weekend off to rebuild and got ready to go again,” he said.

“You can ‘t worry about that stuff,” he said. “You have to be mentally tough as much as you are physically tough.”

This season, his second full campaign with Cowman, started out much better. He won the 81st season opener at Port Royal last month, coming out of a late four-car battle and making a last-lap pass for his second career 410 win at Port.

One goal this year is to get back to Eldora, this time in a 410 to run in the King’s Royal.

“That would be the next big one we would like to tackle,” he said.

Cisney, who had numerous setbacks last season, in addition to the wreck at Port Royal, hopes the opening race was an omen and that he has put his bad racing luck behind him in his first year with his third child.