By NICK SCHWIEN

nschwien@dailynews.net

It's not that Matthew Crowell was expecting a cakewalk.

The young Northern sport mod driver knew there would be a few ups and downs.

But the way the season has started to progress for the 17-year-old from south-central Kansas shows the strides he's made -- and he's making things look rather easy the last few races.

On Saturday night at Dodge City Raceway Park, Crowell picked up his seventh feature win of the season -- his first in a sport mod.

"I'm really, really pleased," Crowell said about the season. "I'm not sure how it would go when we went and switched to a new car. After we got the first win, though, things started to kinda fall into place and the wins did, too."

In his last two nights of racing, Saturday at Dodge City and June 27 at WaKeeney Speedway, Crowell ended both nights in the winner's circle.

He's still searching for his first sport mod feature win at RPM Speedway in Hays, and he'll get another shot at it when the dirt oval hosts races beginning at 7:30 p.m Friday. The night also will feature IMCA-sanctioned modifieds, stocks, hobby stocks and figure-eight racing.

Crowell, who will be a senior at Goddard High School this fall, has been consistent this year at RPM, snagging his best finish April 30 with a third-place outing. He's tied for second in track points at Hays with WaKeeney's Clayton Wilson. Both have 281, only 10 points behind leader Josh Rice.

"Being consistent every lap, just like at WaKeeney," Crowell said about the key to mastering RPM Speedway. "The track conditions are different every other weekend. ... At Hays, the biggest thing is reading the track and seeing what you need to do."

While Crowell has seven wins this year, he knows he still has some work to do.

"We're nowhere close to figuring this thing out yet," he said. "But it makes me feel better with the wins."

Crowell also will compete at Sherman County Speedway in Goodland on Saturday night, a place where he's won all of the feature races this year.

But his success isn't just limited to northwest Kansas. Crowell was in the top 10 in the nation, eighth in the region and second in the state last year in the IMCA hobby stock class.

That left him with high expectations for this year -- his first in a different class.

"I didn't figure it would go as planned," he said. "When I jumped into a hobby stock, I didn't figure I would do as good as I did. ... Now jumping into a sport mod, I'm thinking about going for national rookie of the year. But I never figured I would get it going this quickly."

After his win at WaKeeney on June 27, Crowell was first in state points in the class with 793, just seven ahead of Rice. Tyler Frye was a distant second with 538.

He was fourth in Northern sport mod national rookie points, just behind Beau Kaplan (927), Matthew Looft (857) and Dylan Book (853).

While racing a hobby stock, Crowell was the 2008 Northern Region rookie of the year.

"I'm keeping the same goal as I've always had, and that's to be the national rookie of the year," Crowell said. "If I don't get it, that's OK, then I'll look at the state points. If I can't get the national rookie of the year, the state points would be OK."

Crowell's been dominating as of late. In the last six races at various tracks, he's finished no worse than fourth -- which came June 18 at RPM.

In his last five races, he's won four of them -- the other he was third.

"Going into the sport mod class, some people say it's a beginner class," Crowell said. "But I feel like I can race against the drivers that have been racing for eight or 10 years. ... I don't want to be that guy that goes out and takes out half of the field. I want to show them I'm a kid that can drive."

He's hoping that desire and drive will land him a larger racing gig sometime in the future.

"From here on out, it's going to be trying to get to know people and get sponsors," Crowell said. "This is going to be about as far as our checkbook will take us. Hopefully we'll get a points title and that will open things up."