MOORESVILLE, N.C. — Few would argue that any racing division in the country creates more young stars than the midgets.
Year in and year out more up-and-coming drivers make their mark in the USAC NOS Energy Drink Midget Series and the Lucas Oil POWRi Midget League than in all other classes combined.
The problem, some would say, is they don’t stick around for long periods of times. But the other side of the story is that when young drivers graduate from midget racing to another form of competition, the team owners in this class just plug in another former go-karter or micro sprint racer and things keep chugging along for both the teams and the racing series.
While midget racing has always been a training ground for drivers to learn exquisite car control and then graduate to sprint cars, champ cars, Indy cars — and more recently — stock cars, the number of drivers moving in and out of the series has without a doubt increased in recent years.
While he never won a national midget championship, Kyle Larson burst onto the national scene in 2011 and ’12, winning six USAC features in 2012. He used his success as a springboard to NASCAR racing. While no longer racing full time in the midget division, he has continued to show up and win big races while driving for Keith Kunz Motorsports and now his own operation spearheaded by master crew chief Paul Silva.
Much of the young talent followed Larson through the KKM stable, and on to other things.
Christopher Bell began racing midgets with POWRi and USAC in 2012 and won the USAC national midget championship with KKM the following year. While he’s continued to race midgets on a part-time basis — winning frequently — he’s now advanced through the NASCAR ranks and is a NASCAR Cup Series rookie this season.
Open-wheel racing fans are hopeful of seeing Bell and Larson trade paint on NASCAR’s high banks the way they traded slide jobs in races such as the Lucas Oil Chili Bowl Nationals and the Turkey Night Grand Prix.
A California kart racer, like Larson, Rico Abreu was the next one through the door. Again, racing for Kunz, Abreu won the 2014 USAC midget title and pursued a career in NASCAR racing before settling into a life as a nomadic winged sprint car racer. Still, Abreu, who won the Chili Bowl twice, shows up for the big midget races.
Next came Tanner Thorson, Spencer Bayston and Logan Seavey, with this trio winning the USAC title for Kunz in 2016, ’17 and ’18. All continue to race midgets.
Thorson flirted with stock cars and continues to shop for a late model ride. Bayston has dabbled in the winged sprint car world and Seavey, who has raced stock cars and winged sprint cars, will race full time in USAC’s midget and sprint car divisions this season.
Tyler Courtney, who won the 2019 USAC midget title for Clauson-Marshall Racing, made a name for himself in sprint cars before demonstrating his prowess behind the wheel of a midget.
Teenager Zeb Wise had a breakout season last year, winning USAC and POWRi features, but this year he’ll split his time between a KKM midget and a winged sprint car for Sam McGhee Motorsports.
While Wise moves from midgets to sprint cars, California teenager Buddy Kofoid, who won the Fremont (Ohio) winged sprint car title last year, will focus on the midgets with a full-time ride with the Kunz operation.
With a Chili Bowl preliminary victory aboard a Kunz midget in mid-January, 17-year-old Cannon McIntosh may well be the youngster to watch when the weather warms up in the Midwest and POWRi and USAC get down and dirty on a regular basis.
Whether it’s Seavey, Courtney, Wise, Kofoid or McIntosh you are watching as this midget season unfolds, be on the lookout for the next young midget racing star. He or she is waiting in the wings.