User blog:Ajaxcupseries/When Will Shane Park Take the Next Step?

The Fallon Corner - February 2026

13th, 11th, 9th, 2nd, 3rd.

That is a list of the final points finishes for Shane Park over the course of the past five years - a natural progression from rookie to title contender from ages 20-24.

Park is what every team DREAMS they find when selecting a young prospect to invest in. Natural flashes of development their first couple years in their early 20’s, so that by the time they reach their prime they’re only in their mid 20’s competing for championships.

This gives these guys a much longer title window than late bloomers such as the likes of a Lucas Sambér or Norm Lester, who finally got their shot in top equipment in their mid to late 30’s but only have three to five years left of their prime to capitalize on it.

That is a problem Shane Park needs not to worry about. At the age of 25, the expectation is that he has only just now entered his peak form - and will continue to stay in it for at least the next 5-7 years, if not longer.

However, the issue the former Craftsman Series champion does need to remedy is sealing the deal by capturing the big trophy.

As stated earlier, Park has finished within the top 3 in points each of the past two seasons - only being bested by Diego Orkedi and his teammate Todd Kidd.

These three have far and away established themselves as the best in the sport heading into the ASCA’s new era, with Park on the team that just won it all a season ago.

So what will it take for him to beat Kidd and Orkedi to establish himself as the best in the sport this season?

For starters, it will take more than just one oval win to get the job done.

The beatdown Park put on the competition at the Michigan Road Course a year ago proved far and away who the best road racer in the ASCA is - but even with the newly minted double header in Brooklyn it only accounts for 3 of the 17 events on the calendar.

The rest of the schedule features 4 short track races, 4 high speed aero sensitive events, 2 races at The Stoneyard, 2 races at Ajax Superspeedway, and events at Salt Lake and Denver.

Despite how consistent he’s been the past two years, Park has proven to be rather hit or miss in all of those different disciplines. One year he can run 5th at West Virginia, the next he can run 15th.

Three of his four Cup triumphs coming on road courses proves that there’s still some developing the New York native needs to do across the rest of the schedule - which is scary that he is this good already while being so spotty on ovals.

Next, Shane Park needs to establish his dominance at Ronnie Woods Motorsports.

The consensus is that he’s the second driver at his team, falling in behind reigning Cup champion Todd Kidd on the hierarchy. While that is certainly a respectable place to be especially at this stage of his career, second best doesn’t win championships.

At this point, Kidd is not the only driver he needs to worry about at RWM either.

The team brought in Chris Barrymore via a record setting $56M contract in the offseason, and entering his second season there’s a good chance Colin Ward fully emerges and establishes himself as a rising star in the ASCA.

Point being: Park’s toughest competition for a title in 2026 may come from in house.

Racing with an organization that has such a stacked lineup is a delicate dance, and unlike last year team orders will be well out of the question for team owner Ronnie Woods.

If Park can earn supremacy on his own team up against that squad, he can beat just about anybody in this sport.

Finally, Shane Park needs to put his No. 24 out in clean air much more often.

While the 25 year old led a career high 216 laps a season ago, 100 of them came at Michigan and none of them came after leading the opening 33 laps in Utah.

As we saw in the championship fight in 2025, every last point matters.

All the extra bonus points that Diego Orkedi accumulated for leading 514 laps is what pushed the title battle to a tiebreaker even with Orkedi lacking a win compared to eventual champion Todd Kidd.

With that added loss of a point for leading a lap and leading the most laps, Park needs to make it a priority to get up front early, and stay up front often.

This also ties into a saying many in the sanctioning body have coined: you make your own luck.

The more one puts themself in the lead or close to it, naturally the better chance they’ll have of victory. Sounds like common sense, right?

Look at the All Star Race a year ago - Shane Park found himself in fourth on the final lap, but when the aforementioned Kidd and Orkedi collided he was right there to pick up the pieces and steal $1M dollars.

This looked as if it was trending towards happening in the championship fight as well, with Park winning two of four races in a month long stretch, but the team just lacked the raw pace to keep up with the No.’s 9 & 22 when the going got tough.

It’ll be up to Park and Bobby Dabol to do some soul searching and figure out why they’ve come up short the past two years. But in that time span, driver and crew chief have only racked up more and more valuable experience battling with the best of the best.

This season will put all their reconnaissance over the past two in action.