Two months in the books of racing with three months remaining, and the stars are starting to emerge. While pre-season you could not separate the contenders from the non-contenders, now you can do that with ease. Certain drivers have found the success they wanted, while others have struggled with issues on set-up or wrecks.
Here are five drivers to keep an eye on based on the past couple of weeks.
Jade Franklin continued to get better on a weekly basis last year, moving closer and closer to the front. Flash forward to this season and he’s one of the budding stars of the year with a top-10 in each of the first six races. The sophomore also proved he’s just on the outside of scoring his first career victory as he dominated the June 17 feature, before being passed in the late stages by Matt Bentley. If Franklin can pull off another solid feature draw, as well as keep his No. 31 Super Stock rolling, the Jaded Motorsports team may just be celebrating their first career win.
Justin Holmes didn’t start off the year strong with a failure to finish in the first race of the year, but has since come on strong with four top-10s in the last five races. Coming off his first career top-five finish on Saturday night, Holmes enters the all-important summer with momentum on his side. A little improvement here, and a little improvement there along with a good qualifying draw could make him our surprise winner of the year.
Brandon McFerran knows what it takes to win in the division as he did so last year, scoring a win when he filled in for Cayden Lapcevich. Now since debuting his own brand new car, he hasn’t been anything short of fast with a top-10 in each of his three series starts. Arguably, last Saturday is his best night to date as he ran in the top-three throughout the majority of the 30-lap feature en route to eventually finishing sixth as he drifted back in the final laps. A couple more adjustments and a bit of time to get to know his ride and he could be back in victory lane.
Miles Tyson has visited victory lane this year – just not at Sunset Speedway, as he won a feature at Peterborough Speedway a couple weeks ago. He hasn’t done bad at Sunset Speedway, though, scoring a pair of top-10s including a sixth place finish two weeks ago. He has proven his car can be fast, but now it’s about putting himself in position over the full 30 laps to make his first top-five come together.
Herb Walters came into the year as someone everyone had an eye on based on his previous division success. However, the beginning stages of the year didn’t add up to that with only one top-10 in the first five races. The sixth feature of the month last week represented his best run of the year thus far with a finish of seventh. It seems as he is starting to master the handling of his Monte Carlo, able to battle harder with the top dogs of the division. He has the experience, so a couple more adjustments and a bit more speed and he just may squeeze his way back to victory.
