ANDERSON, Ind. — Kody Swanson joined an exclusive list of drivers May 25 at Anderson Speedway by scoring his third victory in the Pay Less Little 500 presented by UAW for non-winged sprint cars.
In dominating the high-banked, quarter-mile paved bullring, Swanson became the seventh driver in the 71-year history of the crown-jewel event with a hat trick or more of victories to his name.
Eric Gordon is the all-time Little 500 victory leader with nine, while Bob Frey won the race five times and Tom Cherry scored four victories. Swanson, Jeff Bloom, Jim Childers and Darl Harrison have each won the Little 500 three times.
While Swanson’s first two Little 500 victories in 2016 and ’18 were impressive, his win this year in the 71st running of the event was easily his most dominant performance yet.
Swanson started from the pole and led 344 of 500 laps en route to victory, the most laps led by a race winner since Florida’s Dave Scarborough led 347 laps and won for owner Charles Ledford in 1986.
It put a thrilling cap on a trying week for the California native, who was in contention to win the Hoosier Hundred and the Carb Night Classic with the USAC Silver Crown Series before various misfortunes squelched those opportunities.
“Going into Saturday, it had been a tough couple of nights and we’d been looking for a win that we hadn’t found yet, so we were pretty determined going into the Little 500 to make it count … because it was our last race for the weekend,” Swanson told SPEED SPORT. “Needless to say, it all came together pretty well for us. I’m glad it did, because the Little 500 is a historic race that always means a lot to win.
“I wouldn’t say that we necessarily had a chip on our shoulder, but after two Silver Crown races that didn’t fall our way, we weren’t short on motivation,” he added. “You have to put yourself in a position to win at Anderson, and both Shane (Hollingsworth) and I did that by staying up front, just like we did a year ago when I won and he finished third. This time, things just seemed to work out again for us.”
Swanson’s fast start in qualifying was a harbinger of the domination to come, as he jumped out from the pole and led the first 186 laps before making his first of two mandatory pit stops.
“I was fortunate to start from the pole and felt really good about our chances in that first stint,” Swanson recalled. “We had a little trouble on one pit stop and lost one more lap than we wanted to, but the guys stayed calm. Where we could have cross-threaded a nut on an axle that would have ended our night, they made sure to get it on right and give a chance to continue fighting for it.
“That was the point where Shane kind of controlled things, through the middle portion of the race, but once we were able to recover, we had a really fast car,” Swanson added. “We drove back through the field, caught cautions at the right times and put ourselves in position to be there when it counted.”