By NICK SCHWIEN

nschwien@dailynews.net

It didn't take Travis Sherfick long to make the adjustment.

But when you're familiar enough with something, making a change becomes easier.

So when the WaKeeney native positioned himself back behind the wheel of a stock car Aug. 20 at RPM Speedway in Hays, it almost was like he never left.

His second-place run proved it, too.

"To be honest, when I crawled into the stock car of Marty's, it was a nice feeling," Sherfick said. "It's still one of the best races to run."

Sherfick, a stock car contender the last three seasons, switched to a modified before the 2010 season got started. The race nearly two weeks ago was the first in a stock car since last fall.

But when Marty Barth asked Sherfick to pilot his stock car for a few weeks leading up to the Supernationals at Boone Speedway in Iowa beginning next week, Sherfick couldn't resist.

"I didn't think I would miss it all that much, but I did," Sherfick said. "I figured the modified would keep me busy figuring it out."

Sherfick had a solid first run back in the car Aug. 20, finishing second to Terry Cunningham, who leads the points title hunt at RPM Speedway entering Friday's 7:30 p.m. races in Hays.

That runner-up finish came after he spun out earlier in the feature and moved all the way back up to the runner-up spot -- even challenging for the lead at one point.

Then, as soon as he crossed the scales and parked the car in the tech lane, Sherfick hopped out and jumped into his modified ride for its A-main.

He made the quick adjustment, finishing eighth.

"It's so amazing how much difference there is between a stock car and a modified," he said. "A stock car, it's like driving a car down the street. But the modified is so hyped up and has more horsepower, gets that wheel off the ground.

"It's like I went out in hot laps in the stock car and left it to the floor. The motor would bog down, and you didn't have to lift off the gas at all. In the modified, you'd better lift off the gas a little bit."

Sherfick's appearance back in the stock car was a pleasing sight to his family and friends who had grown accustomed to his success in the class. It even got their blood pumping watching him rally from the back of the field to the runner-up spot.

"They said they wished I still was in the stock car class," Sherfick said. "They told me that when I got into the modified even -- not that they didn't want me to get into the modified. But it was just so much fun in the stock car."

Sherfick and his family are slated for more fun Friday as he plans to pull double-duty one more time before leaving for the Supernationals next week, a place where he qualified for the A-main last year in his stock car. That's quite a hefty task, placing him in the top 30 of the nearly 190 competitors in the division.

"I'm definitely looking forward to running the stock car at Boone," Sherfick said. "Boone is the best of the best in competition -- it really is."

* Other classes competing Friday in Hays, along with the stock cars and modifieds, will be the sport compacts, hobby stocks and Northern sport mods. It is Fan Appreciation Night at the races, with adult admission at $5 and children 12 and younger free.