Entering last night's race card at Estevan Motor Speedway, Devin Raynard was two nights away from capturing his second modified season points championship.
The Benson native, who won the mod title in 2009, sat 25 points ahead of Estevan's Aaron Turnbull with 266 after the races of Aug. 10.
Barring catastrophe for Raynard and two nights of perfection from the red-hot Turnbull, the former should take home the hardware on Championship Night next Wednesday.
Raynard has led the way wire-to-wire, ever since winning the first feature of the season on May 18.
That the title is within reach at all for Turnbull is because he's won three of the last four points races.
Still, in those outings Raynard has two seconds and a third.
The veteran driver has finished each of the seven points races this year and his lowest finish was seventh on July 26. The other six were all top-four places.
There is, however, a race to watch for second place. Mike Hagen, who won that July 26 feature, sat four points behind Turnbull entering Tuesday's late model feature.
Tyler Wagner is three points behind Hagen, Tyson Turnbull and Joren Boyce are two and three points behind Wagner, respectively.
All four drivers have a legitimate shot at catching Turnbull for second.
Meanwhile, the winners of the hobby stock and street stock divisions are far from determined.
Hobby drivers Cory Evans (Weyburn) and Tyler Thompson (Carnduff) were in a dead heat in first place prior to Tuesday's racing, both with 308 points.
Stoughton's Gary Goudy Jr. is two behind them.
Evans has had the hotter hand recently, finishing in the top five in each of the last three races, while Thompson has landed out of the top 10 in his last two starts.
Evans also has a feature win this year, that coming on July 9.
In the stock car division, defending champion Rocky Alexander (Estevan) and Robby Rosselli (Minot, N.D.) have duked it out all year long and Alexander led by three points prior to Tuesday's card.
Estevan's Gregg Mann was third, 17 behind Alexander.
Alexander and Rosselli finished one-two on the first night of the season, with Alexander winning, and ever since have chased each other around the track.
Alexander picked up another win on July 20, while Rosselli earned his lone victory on June 15.
Alexander entered last night on a streak of three straight top-three finishes, but Rosselli has shown all season that he is always a threat.
Championship Night will be one to watch.
Josh Lewis can be reached by phone at 634-2654, by e-mail at [email protected], on Twitter at twitter.com/joshlewis306 or on his Bruins blog at bruinbanter.blogspot.com. Alas, he is on vacation this week, so you can contact Jordan Baker. Don't call Josh on his cell phone or he might throw it into the water like in that Corona commercial.
