HOLLY, Mich. — Pavement sprint car guru Kody Swanson is one of the first entries for the July 5 Must See Racing Sprint Series Presented by Perfit-Parts event at Birch Run Speedway.
The single-day event will also feature the Maxima Racing Oils Midwest Lights Series.
It will be the first time Swanson has competed in a winged asphalt sprint car since 2015. It is no surprise Swanson is set to return to winged asphalt sprint car competition as it is quickly becoming very popular and big paydays are becoming regular occurrences for this sector of the sport.
Swanson is no stranger to MSR competition. In fact, he has one career victory with the series, but it wasn’t in winged competition. Swanson was victorious in the lone MSR non-winged event held at Indianapolis Raceway Park during the 2020 Indy Summer Nationals.
Swanson’s last appearance in MSR winged competition occurred on May 23, 2012, at Anderson (Ind.) Speedway where he was runner-up to winner Jason Blonde.
Swanson will be aboard the potent Dick Myers owned No. 50m nicknamed the ‘Mopar Missile’. The Myers-owned car is in the midst of a two-race podium finish. Canadian Aaron Willison found victory with the car this past Saturday at Owosso Speedway and was runner-up at Lancaster, New York on June 1 with the car.
“I had a couple conversations with Dick Myers in the spring about possibly running his car a time or two this summer during casual conversations,” Swanson explained. He knew I had an interest in doing a few winged shows this year. It was a matter of everything fitting together so we could come out and have some fun together this summer.
“He was the first guy who hired me to drive his car that I wasn’t close with already. I think he was the first guy to fire me too. It’s all part of racing and I’m fortunate enough to have had a long career.”
“I think the last time I ran a winged pavement car was at Toledo in June of 2015, so it’s been a while,” Swanson continued. “We blew up running second for Tom Brewer. We qualified well and came from sixth to second pretty quickly. We ended up losing the motor and did a half spin in front of Aaron Pierce. We collected him and that was the last of that.”
Swanson does have one career winged pavement victory with the now defunct Hoosier Outlaw Sprint Series (HOSS) at Jones, Michigan in 2013 driving for Brewer. He’s hoping his most recent start will have the success he found in 2013.
“At that point in time, I had a lot of opportunities with Tom Brewer to run some winged stuff,” Swanson said. “For one reason or another we always had tough luck or didn’t get the finish we wanted. But at that time, I was trying not to just be a pavement guy. In 2014 I was still chasing that first USAC Silver Crown title.
“Instead of running so many winged races I ended up trying to run more dirt sprint car races. It really helped me with what I was missing to be a championship USAC Silver Crown contender. For a few years the schedule was seventy percent dirt,” Swanson continued. “That’s why it’s been so long since I’ve really done any winged stuff. I have a lot of interest in winged stuff now, knowing that the two Open Wheel Showdown events are coming up at the end of the year.”
Swanson is looking forward to the event next week.
“I’m excited about it,” Swanson said. “I certainly haven’t done a lot of it, or a lot of it lately. I know there is an opportunity for me to get comfortable, but I need to improve. I’m excited to get that part started. If more opportunities like this come up to run that type of car, and you can do it more often, you’re only gonna get better at it.
“I’m excited to work with Dick again, be competitive, and tackle Must See Racing competition. Hopefully I can get caught up quickly and we can have a good day at Birch Run.”