Kyle Dudley’s ninth place finish in last year’s Valley Star Credit Union 300 was one of the biggest surprises of the 2014 Late Model Stock Car racing season. Now, he’s hoping to duplicate that success.

Dudley is a three-time track champion at the Franklin County Speedway bullring which sits less than an hour away from Martinsville Speedway. However, until last year, he was seen as a one track jack. That was until his victory at Orange County Speedway and his top-10 finish in last year’s Martinsville race – a race many didn’t even expect him to make the field for.

This season, Dudley scored his first ever NASCAR Division I victory in a Late Model Stock Car race at Caraway Speedway. With his experience there this season and his experience in last year’s race at Martinsville, Dudley is coming back and the swagger is in his eyes.

“I think the experience is definitely going to help us some,” Dudley said. “I think getting to run the actual race and getting to run more laps at one time, you learn a lot more about these things and what you need to do to them. I think it’s going to help a lot this year.”

Despite the confidence from last year’s performances, last year is the past. He’s now focused on this year and spent much of Wednesday’s test session looking to improve on his racecar so he can arrive this weekend in peak performance mode.

“At this point last year, it’s a little bit better but we improved a lot last year and we still need to improve some this year,” Dudley remarked. “We’re working on it. We’ll see what it’s got and go from there. We’ll see what we’ve got I reckon.”

Some things have not changed. The goals and expectations remain the same for Dudley, as they do for every other driver. In order to be in contention to win the race, you have to first make the race.

“I’d love to win but that’s so hard here. There’s so many people. Everybody’s going. Everybody brings their best stuff here and you’re running against 80-100 of the best cars around. I’d be tickled with a top-10 again. Main thing is to try to make the race like everybody else. You make the race, you’ve got a shot at it so we’ll see what we can do.

“If we make the race, we’ll plan accordingly and go from there.”