JACKSONVILLE, Ill. – After relinquishing the lead midway through the race, Logan Seavey charged back past teammate Rico Abreu and went on to win Friday night’s POWRi Lucas Oil National Midget League feature at Jacksonville Speedway.
The victory is Seavey’s 11th of the season in POWRi competition, tying him with Christopher Bell for the series single-season record, set back in 2014.
The evening started off with Toyota drivers Jesse Colwell and Tyler Thomas occupying the front row as the green flag flew. The two ran side-by-side on the first lap before Thomas rushed the top to take the lead.
Thomas’ lead was short-lived, though, as he went over the cushion on lap two and made contact with the wall to bring out a caution. Thomas was able to restart at the tail.
Colwell once again led the field on the restart with Seavey beside him. Colwell continued to run the bottom, but Seavey went high to lead lap two, with Colwell in second, Cannon McIntosh in third, Tucker Klaasmeyer in fourth and Abreu rounding out the top five.
As Seavey paced the race, McIntosh took over second on lap four, while Abreu moved up to fourth and quickly set his sights on Colwell and third place.
By lap six, Abreu moved into the top three in his pursuit for a third-straight POWRi win, after sweeping a pair of races at Federated Auto Parts Raceway at I-55 in August.
With a caution slowing the field on lap eight, Abreu used the restart to catch McIntosh for second, eventually rolling the bottom to overtake him on lap nine. Abreu then began to close in on Seavey for the top spot.
By lap 13, Abreu had caught Seavey and used a slider in turn three of the quarter-mile track to move past for the race lead. At the midway point, it was Abreu, followed by Seavey, McIntosh, Colwell, Tanner Thorson and Zach Daum.
As Abreu continued to pace the race, Thorson moved past Colwell for third on lap 17, setting up a battle for fourth between the two championship leaders, Colwell and Daum.
Daum finally moved past Colwell to take over the fifth spot on lap 23.
As the laps began to wind down, Seavey started to close in on Abreu in the final five laps, as the cars began to battle lapped traffic. Finally, on lap 28, Seavey made his move down the back straight, powering past Abreu into turn three.
Seavey held Abreu off back to the scoring stand and took a lead at that point that he would not relinquish.
Abreu made one last run on the final lap, but it wasn’t enough as Seavey claimed his fifth Jacksonville POWRi victory, tying the all-time mark held by the late Bryan Clauson.
Abreu finished second, followed by Thorson in third, McIntosh in fourth and Daum completing the top five. Toyota power occupied four of the top-five finishing positions.
Points leader Colwell placed seventh.
On the strength of his fifth-place finish, Daum gained 20 points in the POWRi championship race and now trails Colwell by 150 with six races remaining.
The finish:
Logan Seavey, Rico Abreu, Tanner Thorson, Cannon McIntosh, Zach Daum, Jake Neuman, Jesse Colwell, Tucker Klaasmeyer, Tanner Carrick, Ace McCarthy, Tyler Thomas, Jesse Love, Daniel Adler, Daison Pursley, Holley Hollan, Andrew Layser, Korey Weyant, David Camfield Jr., Luke Howard, Austin Brown, Devin Camfield, Andy Bishop, Mitchell Davis.