Jared Fryar’s first victory in the Solid Rock Carriers CARS Late Model Stock Tour at Franklin County Speedway, his first since 2017, gave him a comfortable advantage over the rest of the field in the series point standings with only three races remaining on the schedule.
The next closest competitor to Fryar in the standings is JR Motorsports development driver Connor Mosack, who overtook Layne Riggs for second in points after he finished third behind Fryar and Mike Looney on Saturday night.
“It was good to be up on the podium again,” Mosack said. “I would have liked to get by [Bobby McCarty] earlier to see what we could have done with the top two guys. I know we were behind [Fryar] at the beginning of the race and we were a little bit better than him, but hopefully this gives us a little momentum.”
Mosack’s third place finished matched the previous career high he obtained in the season-opening Solid Rock Carriers 300 at Southern National Motorsports Park, where he managed to finish in front of past CARS LMSC Tour champions like McCarty and his teammate Josh Berry.
Mosack has consistently built off his impressive performance at Southern National since the CARS LMSC Tour returned from its three-month hiatus brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, as his worst finish over the past five races was an 11th at Ace Speedway.
Mosack entered 2020 prepared to tackle the diverse set of tracks on the CARS LMSC Tour schedule, but the cancellation of the Mid-Atlantic Classic at Orange County Speedway due to the pandemic only gave him and JR Motorsports a small amount of time to prepare for the bullring of Franklin County.
After earning a solid starting position of eighth, Mosack avoided trouble and methodically worked his way to the front of the field to finish in third, where he got a great view of the battle between Fryar and Mike Looney during the final five laps.
Although Mosack wanted an opportunity to chase Fryar and Looney down for the lead, he was proud of his performance he turned in at his first Franklin County race and credited his JR Motorsports crew for helping him find the speed in his #88 Chevrolet during qualifying and the 125-lap feature.
“I didn’t think we were that good in practice,” Mosack said. “We made some changes and threw something at the car for qualifying, and it seemed to work out pretty well. Franklin County is a good little track and I’d be happy to race here again.”
Now that Mosack is currently second in the standings, he intends to play both offense and defense over the final three races as he tries to chase down Fryar for the championship, as Riggs, McCarty and Corey Heim only a handful of points behind him.
Mosack is optimistic that circumstances will enable him to close the gap on Fryar’s points lead, but he knows that a win at Langley Speedway against the other championship contenders and track regulars would be crucial in building confidence until the season concludes at Orange County for the Old North State Nationals.
“We’re going to approach things the same way we have all year, which is to go out and get the best finish we can,” Mosack said. “I don’t think we’re going to be conservative or try to save points because Fryar is several points ahead of us, so we’ll have to put together some good finishes together.”
The green flag for the VisitHampton.com 125 at Langley is expected to fly after all the support divisions conclude their feature races, which will begin at 7:00 p.m. on Saturday night.
