After a mediocre race to start his season, Jorge Zuñiga put it all together in Monterrey. Front row start, 2nd place in the first and third heats, and 1st in the second. The second heat was Zuñiga’s first taste of victory since the third race of Season 3 at Charlotte Roval. He had the pace to hold off Swirydowicz when he was closing down on Zuñiga at the end of the second heat. For Swirydowicz, it was mostly business as usual. Pole and fastest lap were trivial for him. He was only prevented from banking a sprint sweep due to Zuñiga running away at the start of the second heat.
With three heats, a lot of points available, and a large field, we saw a lot of movement in the midfield both during the races and in the points standings. James D Carr and Jacob Whalley finished 3rd and 6th respectively, securing a bevy of points that pushed Carr up five spots in the championship, while Whalley improved by four. Carr holds 21 and 22 point advantages over his closest Rookie of the Year candidates: Ronald Methot and Justin T Rhodes.
| ROTY Standings | Pts |
| James D Carr | 84 |
| Ronald Methot | 63 |
| Justin T Rhodes | 62 |
| Shaun Gurd | 32 |
| David Bauer2 | 25 |
| Lucas Lagos | 25 |
Defending champion Logan McKinzie used his car swap to jump into the Elantra he won Season 3 with, and immediately showed improvement, but has remained off the pace of top drivers so far. Jérôme Bajulaz and Francois Shink both had average days overall, experiencing various issues and incidents that resulted in the duo receiving penalties. Bajulaz will be banned from qualifying next week at Mid-Ohio as a result.
Alexander Carver-Robbins and Jeremy Lapainis had respectable debuts. Carver-Robbins with 18 points and Lapainis with 11. Kurt Smith consumed his only car swap to drive the Honda.
With drop weeks coming later in the season, it is impossible to know how the points will shake out down the line. We can however, look at our current raw point tallies to get an idea of which drivers are performing well. Jérôme Bajulaz, Francois Shink, Wojciech Swirydowicz, and Logan McKinzie all sit within 5 points of each other at the top, and have had the most success thus far in the season. Matthew Rzepka isn’t far behind this group, and currently he very solidly sits in a ‘best of the rest’ position. Carr, Hunley, and Jacob Whalley have all shown flashes of the pace required to challenge Rzepka and beyond, but have to be more consistent in finding it. Behind all these is Slugnificent. He has suffered from some bad luck early in the season, so from now on he needs to be on point so he can use his drop weeks on these past couple of races.
Next week, the Alpha Touring Challenge is heading to Mid-Ohio for the first time in league history. Qualifying starts at 9am at the track, while the race will be at 2pm.
Alpha Touring Challenge 