Francis Goes Full-Time with CRA Pro Series in 2026

📸 Eric Young | Dream Bigger Media

Painesville, OH - The list of full-time drivers with the Turn One CRA Pro Series Presented by Chevrolet Performance continues to grow. Francis Engineering frontman, Albert Francis, has signed his intention to compete for a championship with the CRA Pro Series in 2026, adding his name to a growing list of former champions and winners who are chasing success this season.

Francis has raced around with a pick-and-choose type of schedule over the last few years. He made five starts with the Appalachian Sucker Punch ASA STARS National Tour in 2025, collecting a pair of top ten finishes in the process. Meanwhile, eight starts with the CRA Pro Series last season resulted in eight top tens, five top five finishes, including his first career win with the series. Francis went to Winchester Speedway Victory Lane on Friday night of Winchester 400 weekend.

Francis pursued points-racing with the ASA STARS National Tour in 2023, finishing 7th in the final standings. The following year, Francis slipped to eighth in the final standings. A 2020 Jennerstown Speedway Track Champion, Francis is returning to Pro Late Model points racing for the first time since his title six seasons ago. 

“We’ve ran for points quite a bit in the past,” Francis told CRA announcer, Jonathan Ramos. “We’d just geared our stuff more toward Super [Late Model] stuff. There’s a really good Pro schedule this year, so it makes it a little easier to focus on the business and pick and choose the Super races we want to run, and still get to run all the good tracks we want to run.”

The bid to win a CRA Pro Series championship comes just months after his first career win at Winchester Speedway, the track that serves as the final points-paying race of the season. Francis says that helps with the confidence heading into a new season.

“I’m pretty heavily motivated to go win races,” Francis said. “You go to the race track, you have speed, it motivates you to believe you can go win races.”

A competitive field of full-time drivers is being assembled for the 2026 campaign with the Turn One CRA Pro Series, and Francis isn’t naive to the strength of the field he’s going to face this season.

“I think [the different feel] is definitely showing with the commitment from everybody,” Francis said. “There’s definitely going to be a strong field of cars, and there’s a lot of really good race tracks [on the schedule] that promote good racing.”

The first race for the Ohio native is in his home state on Saturday, April 18 at Toledo Speedway for the House of Meats 100. Advanced tickets are available at ToledoSpeedway.com. For more information on the Turn One CRA Pro Series Presented by Chevrolet Performance, visit CRA-Racing.com.