WINCHESTER, Ind. — It had been more than a quarter century since a driver had won four consecutive races within a single USAC division at Indiana’s Winchester Speedway.
Throughout Friday night’s 34th running of the Rich Vogler Classic, Kody Swanson made certain it was going to be him as he swept the entire night of events at the half-mile paved oval.
Swanson was fastest in practice earned the fast qualifying lap and led all 100 laps from the pole aboard his Doran Binks Racing/Mission Foods – Wilke Orthodontics – Glenn Farms/Beast/Lanci Ford.
For Swanson, he partied like it was 1999 as only three previous drivers had won four-straight USAC main events at Winchester, the last two of which occurred 26 seasons ago.
Steve Chassey remains the all-time record holder with five consecutive USAC National Sprint Car victories at Winchester in 1979. Dave Steele collected four-in-a-row with the USAC National Sprint Cars in 1998-1999. Most recently, Ryan Newman corralled four straight USAC National Midget triumphs spanning 1998-1999.
Swanson has now authored four USAC Silver Crown wins at Winchester in succession, taking top honors in 2022-2023-2024-2025. Furthermore, Swanson also added another Rich Vogler Classic victory to his résumé after also making winner’s circle visits in 2016 and 2019 when the event was held at Indianapolis Raceway Park.
“You come in here and respect the place because of how fast it is,” Swanson explained. “I used to struggle coming to the high banks and I remember them saying when I first moved here that, ‘well, if you want to go to Indy someday, you’ve got to get good at the high banks. I may never get to do the Indy part but I sure appreciate the chance to race here and some of the historic places we get to race at with the Silver Crown series.”
As coincidence would have it, the last individual to win four USAC races in a row at Winchester, Newman, was in the field on Friday night, making his first USAC appearance at Winchester since the 2000 season. In the years to come, the 1999 USAC Silver Crown titlist headed south to forge a two-decade-plus career in NASCAR, where he collected 18 career Cup Series wins, including the 2008 Daytona 500.
Swanson immediately wrestled control of the field on lap one over the trailing C.J. Leary and Justin Grant. That said, the early race story belonged to veteran Brian Tyler. Over the course of the first six laps, the 11th place starting Tyler picked off one car per lap to race his way into the top-five.
Tyler experienced several close encounters of the outside wall kind, making full contact with his right rear tire on lap 11, which white walled the sidewall as white paint dust speckled the air. By lap 23, he had scooted by Bobby Santos for fourth and was still rolling.
On lap 43, Tyler pulled off what may have been the save of the year as he dirt tracked his ride through turns three and four, barely scraping by while completely sideways. However, Tyler seemingly never lifted and continued on without much hindrance. One lap later, however, Dakoda Armstrong pounced under Tyler for the fourth spot.
Tyler’s run proved to be short lived as, soon thereafter, he began to freefall through the field and was running 11th by the time he dropped off the pace on lap 69.
Up at the front of the field, Swanson remained in total control and began to stretch out his lead on second running Leary. For much of the first half of the race, Leary never strayed more than a few car lengths off Swanson’s rear bumper. But as the race wore on, Swanson wore the field down, increasing his lead to nearly two seconds with roughly 30 laps to go, but this was certainly no time to let up.
“C.J. kept pressure on me the whole time,” Swanson recalled. “Him, Justin (Grant) and the whole field here are really good and they’ll make you pay if you mess up.”
On lap 95 of 100, a mess did find its way into what had been a fairly clean race from the start. After hitting what the team believed to be a slick spot in turn one, 10th running Matt Westfall’s car skidded left and darted right, straight into the outside wall, causing major damage to the right front of the car.
Just behind was hard luck, Leary who attempted to avoid the accident, but as he skidded to miss Westfall, his right-rear tire went completely flat, darting him to the bottom of turns one and two and to a stop.
After what had been a relatively stress free environment for Swanson throughout the first 98 laps, the race had suddenly turned into a two-lap dash.
“I was just hoping I could outlast them and I’m out of breath because I feel like I was working hard every lap, especially the last two,” Swanson said. “I’m thankful I didn’t spin out on that last restart and I’m thankful that we had such a good car. Everyone kept trying all day, and even into qualifying, we were making changes and trying to make this No. 77 better.”
After the restart, Swanson’s quest stayed true to form, as he dashed to the finish line for his 47th career USAC Silver Crown win over Grant, Dakoda Armstrong and Bobby Santos with Newman fifth.
USAC Silver Crown National Championship, Winchester Speedway, Winchester, Ind., June 27, 2025
HONEST ABE ROOFING QUALIFYING: 1. Kody Swanson, 77, Doran Binks-14.842; 2. C.J. Leary, 21, Team AZ/Petty/Rossi-15.059; 3. Justin Grant, 91, Hemelgarn-15.162; 4. Kyle Robbins, 7, KR-15.167; 5. Bobby Santos, 98, DJ-15.217; 6. Dakoda Armstrong, 5, C & A-15.257; 7. Ryan Newman, 92, Kazmark-15.260; 8. Matt Westfall, 54, 4 Kings-15.268; 9. Colton Bettis, 126, Pierce-15.273; 10. Logan Seavey, 22, Rice/Abacus-15.293; 11. Brian Tyler, 81, BCR-15.386; 12. Taylor Ferns, 55, Ferns-15.404; 13. Tyler Roahrig, 41, Newman-15.518; 14. Jackson Macenko, 124, Hayes-15.521; 15. Jake Trainor, 6, Klatt-15.562; 16. Kyle Steffens, 8, Steffens-15.891; 17. Nathan Byrd, 40, Meyer-15.911; 18. Gregg Cory, 32, Williams/Cory-17.587; 19. Dave Berkheimer, 31, Berkheimer-NT.
FEATURE: (100 laps, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Kody Swanson (1), 2. Justin Grant (3), 3. Dakoda Armstrong (6), 4. Bobby Santos (5), 5. Ryan Newman (7), 6. Taylor Ferns (12), 7. Nathan Byrd (17), 8. Kyle Steffens (16), 9. C.J. Leary (2), 10. Matt Westfall (8), 11. Gregg Cory (18), 12. Tyler Roahrig (13), 13. Brian Tyler (11), 14. Colton Bettis (9), 15. Jackson Macenko (14), 16. Jake Trainor (15), 17. Kyle Robbins (4), 18. Logan Seavey (10), 19. Dave Berkheimer (19). 37:54.547
