Photo Credit: Ashley McCubbin
Each day of the week, the column will highlight a division, highlighting five drivers and mentioning things that you should know going into the next week of racing.
Each year, it seems the competitive nature of the Graham Landscape Mini Stock division at Sunset Speedway kicks it up a notch. This season so far seems to be no exception to the rule as each event has featured three, four-wide racing throughout the field with drivers battling as hard as possible to try and get through the traffic. The division is also the only division at Sunset to have a different winner in each of the features thus far in 2015 with Brandon McFerran, Andy Kamrath and Danny Benedict snatching victories. Needless to say, it’s enough action to keep you on your toes.
Danny Benedict was the man that got to come out on top on Saturday night as he took the lead in the second half of the feature and edged out Brandon McFerran at the line for the victory. Benedict has always shown speed during his Mini Stock career and posted a fourth place finish on the second night of competition. Beyond that, he took last weekend’s off-night to go to Peterborough Speedway, and scored the victory there.
During the pre-season when Benedict announced that he’d be making the move to Sunset Speedway full-time, a lot of eyes glanced towards the No. 54 Mustang, knowing that he could join the front runners of the division. So far, he’s proving that sentiment to be true.
While Benedict snatched up the big prize, there were a pair of drivers who could’ve very well snatched up their first victories of the season if things had fallen differently.
Jordan Howse started right near the front and looked to possibly be on the way to his first win of the season – well, not quite. Contact while running three-wide on lap two resulted in a cut tire, and pitting under caution sent the teenager to the back of the field. Howse showed the speed that he is capable of, though, making his way through the field to post a fourth place finish.
That could be big news come the later half of the year when we focus on the championship as Howse is one of the four drivers with a top-10 finish in each of the three nights of competition, having posted a sixth and second to start off the year. The other fact – that speed. Now that he’s got the mustang handling as he wants, victory lane can be a sight that is very near and dear.
Miles Tyson led a bunch of laps near the beginning before being passed by Benedict, finishing the 25-lap feature in the fifth spot. It marks his first top-five of the season and he is also one of the four drivers to have posted a top-10 in each event this year.
With each weekend, Tyson has improved in speed in performance, has noted by an eighth, a seventh and now a fifth. He debuted a brand new car at the beginning of this season and it seems as though he’s discovering what the new ride will take to be fast. If he can keep that trend of improvement continuing, he could find victory lane early this year.
While the focus was on those mentioned above and a couple other faces, Eric Yorke ran up front throughout the entire feature, spending the majority of the event in the top-three. He would fade in the later stages, though, posting a sixth place finish to cap off the afternoon. For Yorke, it marks a great performance, his best since mid-summer last season. It seems as though the previous division champion is once again finding his footing.
As mentioned, three-wide, four-wide racing was the name of the game, but with that comes contact and with contact, you get flat tires. Jake Watson was among the drivers who suffered a flat tire on Saturday night. Though he didn’t just suffer one flat tire, but two, and the second resulted in a trip down pit road under green flag conditions. As a result, he went down a couple of laps and would finish deep in the field.
Watson has shown speed early this season, posting a top-10 finish two weeks ago. He also snatched up his first career heat victory during Spring Velocity. If he can get things to go his way this weekend, he could be back in the top-10 and possibly even the top-five.
