Taylor Ferns to Make Final Pavement Midget Start of 2013 at Columbus this Weekend
By Ferns Racing PR 

SHELBY TOWNSHIP, Mich.—Oct. 11, 2013 — Taylor Ferns has raced a fair amount this year on pavement, with the majority of those starts coming in a full-bodied stock car with the ARCA Racing Series Presented by Menards. She has made five appearances on the pavement in a midget in 2013 and will have one more chance to add to a solid season on the asphalt this weekend as she heads to Columbus Motor Speedway in Ohio for the finale of the Honda USAC National Midget Series Pavement Championship campaign.

The season finale for the Honda USAC National Midget Series Pavement Championship at Columbus Motor Speedway is set for Saturday, Oct. 12. The event will begin with hot laps, followed by time trials and qualifying heat races. The night will culminate with an A-Feature event on the one-third-mile, semi-banked oval.

“I’ve raced a couple of different car at Columbus (Motor Speedway), so that should come in handy this weekend,” said Ferns. “It’s a fun track and there is a lot of room to race, especially in a midget. You can really drive a midget hard into the corners, because it’s an open track. I’ve always enjoyed going to Columbus, because I won one of my first quarter midget races on the little track there.”

Ferns raced at Columbus Motor Speedway in 2012 with the JEGS/CRA All-Stars Tour in a late model. She qualified 13th for that event and was caught up in an accident with 11 laps remaining, and wound up finishing 17th.  During her USAC D1 Midget Series title-winning season of 2011, she finished sixth in a 30-lap contest at Columbus, after winning the second heat race earlier in the race program.

The winningest female in USAC history finished seventh in her most recent start with the Honda USAC National Midget Series Pavement Championship in July at Lucas Oil Raceway at Indianapolis in Clermont, Ind., which marked her second seventh-place run of the season at the 0.686-mile track. One race prior to that, she scored her best-career finish with the Honda USAC National Midget Series, coming home fifth on the one-mile paved oval at Pikes Peak International Raceway in Colorado. The high school senior also made a pair of midget starts on the pavement at New Smyrna Speedway in Florida in February aboard her family-owned Motor City Transport Inc. Beast.

“Racing against the USAC national drivers this year in the midget has helped me learn so much, because you are racing against the best of the best,” she noted. “I feel like we are picking it up here in the second half of the year on the pavement, especially in the midget. It’s been a couple of months since we’ve raced a midget on pavement, and I certainly ready to get to Columbus and get back in the car.”

Ferns pulled double duty at both Pikes Peak and Lucas Oil Raceway earlier this season, also racing with the Traxxas USAC Silver Crown Series, finishing seventh at Lucas Oil Raceway at Indianapolis and 11th at Pikes Peak, where she ran as high as third in the late going, before running out of fuel.

With the ARCA Racing Series Presented by Menards this season, the native of Shelby Township, Mich., raced six times on paved tracks. She finished ninth in her ARCA debut at Mobile International Speedway in Alabama in March, after qualifying fifth. Ferns also made short track pavement ARCA starts at Toledo Speedway in Ohio and Elko Speedway in Minnesota, along with competing on a seven-eighths-mile venue at Iowa Speedway. She made two superspeedway starts with the series, with those coming at Pocono Raceway in Pennsylvania and Kentucky Speedway. In eight total ARCA starts this season, the 17-year-old earned three top-10 finishes and was among the top-15 in seven of those races.

Last weekend in the DuPont Gold Crown Midget Nationals at Tri-City Speedway in Pontoon Beach, Ill., for the Honda USAC National Midget Series, Ferns qualified for each of the two preliminary features. On the second night of the three-night event she won the first heat race, which put her in the dash. Mechanical problems prevented her from competing on the night, which was delayed a day by rain.

Ferns enters the season finale for the Honda USAC National Midget Series Pavement Championship among the top-10 in points, despite not entering all of the events in 2013.

“We really want to pick up some strong finishes to wrap up this season, as we get ready for next year,” Ferns said. “We’ve had our ups and downs this year, and if we can finish the year on a strong note that will be something we can pick back up on next year. All the laps I’ve gotten this year in all of the different cars have been very helpful and racing against so many strong drivers has taught me a lot as well.”