SPEEDWAY, Ind. — After eight races at eight different racetracks across a 10-night span, one single, solitary on track position is what decided the $25,000-to-win USAC NOS Energy Drink Indiana Sprint Week Presented by Honest Abe Roofing championship for Kevin Thomas Jr. and Rock Steady Racing.
In the finale at Haubstadt’s Tri-State Speedway, the Cullman, Alabama driver finished one position ahead of defending ISW titlist Logan Seavey as they crossed the stripe first and second in both the feature and the championship race.
The six-point margin of Thomas over Seavey proved to be the closest finish in the final tally of Indiana Sprint Week since 16 years earlier in 2009.
Thomas’ third ISW championship continues the presidential-like pattern of once every four years, following previous crowns in 2017, 2021 and now 2025. Furthermore, KTJ also became just the fourth driver to win at least three career Indiana Sprint Week titles, joining four-time champs Kevin Thomas (no relation) and Levi Jones along with fellow three-timer Dave Darland.
Thomas pulled off the “walk off homer” by winning the final race of Indiana Sprint Week and the ISW championship in a single night, the first to do so since Bryan Clauson 12 years prior in 2013. After no finish worse than seventh throughout the week, Thomas finally notched his first win in the eighth and final race of the Hoosier state tour.
“We got to run all eight races, which rarely happens,” Thomas noted. “Usually, we get a rain out or two, but the weather threw us a couple curveballs. We just had a good enough week to get it done. Last time I won this, I didn’t win a race, and I didn’t want that to happen again.”
Thomas also provided longtime USAC car owner Hank Byram and Rock Steady Racing its first Indiana Sprint Week title after a quarter century of trying to earn the coveted Bridgeport rocker annually awarded to the champion entrant of each Indiana Sprint Week.
“We have worked our asses off,” Byram exclaimed. “We got Tim Spindler back (on the crew) and that was a great deal for us. He’s the glue that keeps us together. We all know our jobs but Tim, he just keeps us glued together and focused, and this is what you get. It was 25 years coming but we got it.”
For Thomas, whose first half of the USAC AMSOIL Sprint Car National Championship season had been a rollercoaster of results, it all came together during Indiana Sprint Week in what is his second full-time season with the team.
“Hank and (wife) Michelle (Byram) do so much,” Thomas praised. “They bring a lot of people to the racetrack, and they provide a great racecar. This one’s for them. He’s never won one of these, so this is pretty special. I know he’s about 75, so he’ll probably use (the rocking chair).
It’s a big team effort. Obviously, Hank, Michelle, Tim Spindler, Brian Karraker, Kyle, C.D. and Country, it’s just a big group effort. My wife gets me up and down the road. She’s working her butt off at the t-shirt trailer every single day. My dad’s here, my step mom, my aunt, who I don’t think has ever been to one of my races, and my mom back home who’s been texting me every day.”
Thomas collected successive finishes of fourth, third, third, sixth, third, seventh, second and first for an average finish of 3.625. This is all coming after a 9th place average finish throughout the first 23 events of the USAC Sprint Car season.
“My team did a great job with the race car,” Thomas beamed. “From IMS on, I don’t think we ran off the podium but maybe three times. We’ve been really working all year. We’ve struggled for the first half of the year but these guys, they just don’t quit. They keep trying and trying and trying, but we finally found something, and I spoke on it probably a month and a half ago. That just transformed into this week, and we got good at the right time.”
The 38th annual edition of Indiana Sprint Week tied the record for the most different winners in a single ISW with seven.
Seavey was the only two-time winner of the series at Lawrenceburg Speedway and Bloomington Speedway. Winners also included Justin Grant, Robert Ballou, Briggs Danner, C.J. Leary, Chase Stockon and Thomas. The 2016 series also featured seven different victors.
