INDIANAPOLIS — The first woman to finish on the podium of a USAC Silver Crown race is going full-time with the series in 2023 on both the dirt and pavement.
After focusing solely on the pavement Silver Crown races over the past two seasons, now the Shelby Township, Mich. racer will compete in all 13 events on the trail of the diverse racing series in the new year aboard the Ferns Racing No. 155 wrenched by past Lawrenceburg Speedway sprint car track champion, Kevin Besecker.
“I’m going back full-time Silver Crown racing,” Ferns exclaimed. “I just picked up my dirt car yesterday from (Beast) and I’m planning on doing the entire Silver Crown schedule as well as all the 500 Sprint Car Tour races. I’ve been working really hard off the track to get this going.”
The full-time law student, who works in the offices of her sponsor, the Sam Bernstein Law Firm, has made 19 career Silver Crown starts since 2012. She enters the season following a career-best performance with the series in 2022, finishing 10th in the standings despite only participating in the pavement events.
Ferns’ third place result in May of 2022 at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park was the best finish ever by a woman in Silver Crown competition. She then repeated the feat two months later with an additional third in July at Winchester (Ind.) Speedway. In fact, Ferns holds the distinction of having the best ever Silver Crown finish by a woman on both pavement and dirt with a fourth place finish at Ohio’s Eldora Speedway in 2013.
The team is in the process of moving their racing options from Michigan to central Indiana, and after taking three years off from racing to focus on her education and work, the 2011 USAC D1 Midget champion is stoked to make a full run at both the title and making a historic run as a first-time winner in the 2023 season. She feels that last year’s performances were just the tip of the iceberg.
“My innate nature is that I’m super competitive and I want to go to the racetrack to win like everybody else,” Ferns stated. “I know we have the equipment to do it and I know what I’m capable of doing as a racecar driver. I think some of the podiums we had and how competitive we were at basically all the pavement Silver Crown races is kind of a sneak peek, hopefully, of what’s to come next season.”