MERCED, Calif. — Of all the California dirt tracks Kyle Larson has competed on in his USAC NOS Energy Drink Midget National Championship career, there had been just one that he’d been unable to conquer prior to Sunday night’s Midget Madness finale.
That place was Merced Speedway.
Finally, in his sixth attempt, Larson (Elk Grove, Calif.) broke through the barrier, chasing down Logan Seavey for the lead just prior to the midway point of the 30-lap feature, then led the remaining 17 trips around the quarter-mile dirt oval to score his first USAC National Midget win of the year, and his fourth in his last five series appearances dating back to 2023.
Larson’s relatively troublesome spot of Merced has resulted in uncommon results for him over the years in USAC National Midget competition. In 2020, he took ninth and fourth across the two nights, and in 2021, missed the feature on opening night, then scored a 24th the following evening.
However, 10 of his 29 career triumphant performances with the series have come in his home state of California: Placerville (4), Ventura (3), Bakersfield (1) and Perris (1). However, for whatever rhyme or reason, Merced had escaped his grip.
”We’ve been really good whenever we’ve ran the midget at all these California tracks except for Merced,” Larson acknowledged. “I feel like we’ve been average at best at Merced, and then we had a couple races where we were really bad.”
Despite capturing the accompanying winged 360 sprint car race just prior to the midget feature, Larson still felt a bit of trepidation entering the midget main in his Silva Motorsports/FloRacing – HendrickCars.com – Durst – K & C Drywall – JVI Group/Eagle/Speedway.
“I was a bit nervous going into that feature just because the sprint cars go through the holes way easier than the midgets,” Larson explained. “In a midget, just because you’re sideways, you’re bouncing a lot. I was nervous with the track slickening up and I felt like we were going to have to run through the holes more, which we did. But my car could handle it there, which was nice.”
Larson started his race from the third slot, and remained there for the initial 10 laps as Logan Seavey headed the field with Karter Sarff sandwiched in between the two in second. Larson ultimately overtook Sarff for second on the 11th lap, then set course to track down Seavey who had sprinted out to a commanding 1.471 second lead.
However, Seavey’s wide advantage was wiped out on the 13th lap when afternoon feature winner Corey Day’s car suddenly slowed to a stop atop the turn two banking. Running seventh at the time, Day restarted at the tail, but only managed to make it back to 17th at the checkered.
With the field bunched up following the restart, Larson swiftly swiped the lead away from Seavey in turn one on the 14th lap. However, Seavey turned down off turn two and raced his way back on by to retain the top spot for the time being. Moments later, trouble found third running Sarff who was in a prime spot to accrue his best career USAC National Midget finish. In the end, it was not to be as Sarff slowed, then pulled off, out of the race with a 24th place finish in the 24 car field.
The interruption of Larson’s pursuit was merely temporary as Larson jumped right back on the horse, diving under and driving past Seavey in turn one on the lap 14 restart to take over the race lead once and for good.
“(Seavey) was pretty committed to running and exiting above the cushion,” Larson recalled. “We had that restart and I got by him, then the caution came out. He actually got back by me, then went to the bottom of three and four, and I was like ‘dang.’ We got the caution and he was running where I wanted to be. So I just felt like on the restart that, if I exited four close enough to him, I needed to try a slide job or whatever into one. It had a lot of grip for me across the center. I caught the cushion just right off of two and could protect.”
Meanwhile, Kofoid was hustling his way up the chart as well, and on the 20th lap, made his move underneath Seavey in turn four to slot into second. In a moment’s notice, he was within arm’s reach of Larson for the lead with less than 10 laps to go amid a bevy of traffic, and Larson could feel his presence.
“I felt pretty good for a while, then caught traffic,” Larson replayed. “My momentum slowed down quite a bit in three and four and I couldn’t really see my line in one and two. I thought I saw somebody poke their nose into one, so I figured they were building a run off the top of three and four. I moved back up there and felt better, and I just needed to keep my momentum up better.”
Nonetheless, Larson never allowed Kofoid to get close enough to attempt to clear him, and Larson was able to help ease the stress by gapping Kofoid with a lapped car separating the two at the very end. At the stripe, Larson was 0.791 seconds better than Kofoid who finished as the runner-up while Logan Seavey completed an all northern California top-three. Tanner Thorson and Carson Macedo rounded out the top-five.
Buddy Kofoid (Penngrove, Calif.) and his miraculous streak at Merced continued with a third place result in his Keith Kunz/Curb-Agajanian Motorsports/Mobil 1 – TRD – Curb Records – IWX/Lynk/Speedway Toyota. Kofoid has now finished on the podium in nine consecutive USAC National Midget starts at Merced dating back to 2020. Since that point in time, his Merced finishes have included a 2nd-3rd-1st-2nd-1st-2nd-3rd-
Logan Seavey (Sutter, Calif.) jumped back on the podium with a third place run after pacing the opening 13 laps of the feature in his Abacus Racing/McVey Trucking – Indy Custom Stone – Factory QRC – Prime 47/Spike/Stanton SR-11x. It’s Seavey’s first top-three with the series since scoring a third in September at Ohio’s Eldora Speedway.
Zach Wigal (Belpre, Ohio) has pulled out to a 30 point lead over Kale Drake in the race for 2024 USAC National Midget Bob Stroud/Max Papis Innovations Rookie of the Year honors. Wigal helped his cause in a big way with a 16th to 8th feature run which earned him hard charger honors for the night.
USAC NOS Energy Drink Midget National Championship, Merced Speedway, Merced, Calif., Nov. 24, 2024
SIMPSON RACE PRODUCTS FIRST HEAT: (8 laps, top-5 transfer to the feature) 1. Tanner Thorson (#25m Malloy), 2. Tyler Courtney (#23c Silva), 3. Corey Day (#4 Kahne), 4. Karter Sarff (#31 Beilman), 5. Zach Wigal (#89 CBI), 6. Jake Andreotti (#00 Davis), 7. Peter Paulson (#Q32 El Toro). 1:37.39
ROD END SUPPLY SECOND HEAT: (8 laps, top-5 transfer to the feature) 1. Kale Drake (#97K Kunz/Curb-Agajanian), 2. Hayden Reinbold (#19AZ Reinbold-Underwood), 3. Ryan Timms (#67 Kunz/Curb-Agajanian), 4. Carson Macedo (#99AU Dyson), 5. Logan Seavey (#57 Abacus), 6. Drake Edwards (#3p Petty), 7. Barrie Valentino (#Q23 El Toro). 1:37.07
T.J. FORGED THIRD HEAT: (8 laps, top-5 transfer to the feature) 1. Caden Sarale (#32 Sarale), 2. Gavin Miller (#97 Kunz/Curb-Agajanian), 3. Buddy Kofoid (#71 Kunz/Curb-Agajanian), 4. Daison Pursley (#86 CBI), 5. Jacob Denney (#25 Malloy), 6. Ronnie Gardner (#68 Six8), 7. Kyle Hawse (#20x Hawse). 1:36.74 (New Track Record)
CAR IQ FOURTH HEAT: (8 laps, top-5 transfer to the feature) 1. Emerson Axsom (#67K Kunz/Curb-Agajanian), 2. Zach Daum (#31B Beilman), 3. Justin Grant (#2 RMS), 4. Cannon McIntosh (#71K Kunz/Curb-Agajanian), 5. Kyle Larson (#1K Silva), 6. Travis DeGaton (#39T DeGaton), 7. Terry Nichols (#1p Nichols-Peckfelder). 1:37.38
ELLIOTT’S CUSTOM TRAILERS & CARTS SEMI: (8 laps, top-4 transfer to the feature) 1. Drake Edwards, 2. Jake Andreotti, 3. Ronnie Gardner, 4. Travis DeGaton, 5. Peter Paulson, 6. Barrie Valentino, 7. Kyle Hawse, 8. Terry Nichols.
FEATURE: (30 laps, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Kyle Larson (3), 2. Buddy Kofoid (4), 3. Logan Seavey (1), 4. Tanner Thorson (7), 5. Carson Macedo (5), 6. Jacob Denney (11), 7. Daison Pursley (14), 8. Zach Wigal (16), 9. Cannon McIntosh (12), 10. Ryan Timms (13), 11. Emerson Axsom (10), 12. Justin Grant (18), 13. Kale Drake (8), 14. Caden Sarale (9), 15. Tyler Courtney (19), 16. Zach Daum (15), 17. Corey Day (6), 18. Gavin Miller (17), 19. Hayden Reinbold (22), 20. Drake Edwards (20), 21. Ronnie Gardner (23), 22. Jake Andreotti (21), 23. Travis DeGaton (24), 24. Karter Sarff (2).