MACON, Ill. — Only three individuals have ever won USAC National feature events at two different racetracks on the same day.
For many years, the exclusive list of members in this club included only Billy Vukovich and J.J. Yeley.
Now one of the rarest feats in the history books of the United States Auto Club has a new name to add to the group: Logan Seavey.
After scoring a USAC Silver Crown victory at the Illinois State Fairgrounds on Saturday afternoon, Seavey headed east to Illinois’ Macon Speedway to earn his second victory of the day, this time in USAC NOS Energy Drink Midget National Championship competition.
While his Springfield champ car run required some heroic maneuvers late in the game to get the job done, the Sutter, California native left no doubt from start to finish at Macon as he led all 30 laps en route to his third USAC National Midget win of the season in his Abacus Racing/Honest Abe Roofing – Indy Custom Stone – Laura Kopetsky Tri-Ax/Spike/Stanton SR-11x.
From the Springfield Mile to Mighty Macon, Seavey’s feat couldn’t have come at two more vastly different venues. Not to mention, he achieved the first leg of the day in a big and bold champ car, then capped the night behind the wheel of a diminutive and twitchy midget. It’s a feat both big and small when you look at it in that capacity.
“The mile is a completely different ballgame,” Seavey noted. “(Macon) is where I cut my teeth midget racing with POWRi in 2017-18-19 with Flea (Ruzic) and Keith Kunz/Curb-Agajanian Motorsports and all those guys. I’ve won a handful of POWRi races here, but this is obviously a different field and it’s really hard to win.”
“You can’t win any races without a good car,” Seavey continued. “But to win two in one day, it just says how good of racecars I’m driving and I’m just fortunate to be here.”
Abacus Racing, meanwhile, joins 2022 USAC Hall of Fame inductee Doug Caruthers as the only team/entrant to capture multiple USAC National event wins on the same day at different tracks. Abacus is a co-entrant on Seavey’s Silver Crown ride alongside Rice Motorsports.
Caruthers and his driver, Billy Vukovich, won a pair of USAC National Midget features on June 24, 1967, at Denver, Colorado’s Lakeside Speedway and Colorado Springs, Colorado’s Sportsman Raceway Park, becoming the first to achieve the feat.
Thirty-seven years later, on July 24, 2004, J.J. Yeley captured a USAC National Midget main event at the Milwaukee Mile for car owner Steve Lewis. A chartered plane then carried Yeley, other drivers and USAC officials to Indiana’s Terre Haute Action Track for the Indiana Sprint Week finale. There, Yeley’s incredible run saw him charge from 10th to 1st around the outside on the very first lap to complete a dominant day in Gary Stanton’s No. 75.
A day of racing simply can’t get much better than the one Seavey had on Saturday, even if he was out of breath by the end of it all.
“This is pretty close to the top,” Seavey reflected. “This is so cool to come to two different tracks with two different cars, and to come to a place I love is awesome. I felt a lot better after leaving Springfield that I could win here. My car has just been unbelievable. I don’t have to keep saying it; it pretty much speaks for itself.”
If he’s not going to keep saying it, we can reiterate the fact. For Seavey, it’s his ninth straight podium finish this season with the USAC National Midgets. The only other drivers in the past decade to earn nine consecutive top-three results with the series are Rico Abreu (9 in 2014) and Tyler Courtney (9 in 2020).
Seavey, the 2018 series champion, has made a run since the June round of USAC Indiana Midget Week at Gas City I-69 Speedway that includes a successive list of finishes that looks like this: 1st, 3rd, 3rd, 2nd, 3rd, 1st, 2nd, 2nd and 1st. Now, his championship point lead has ballooned to a whopping 138 points.
Owning a prime starting spot to launch his 30-lap feature run – from the outside of the front row – Seavey was instantaneously en route to his third win of the season and the 11th of his USAC National Midget career, tying him with Kasey Kahne, Jimmy Knight, Bob McLean, Johnny Moorhouse, Bobby Santos and Brad Sweet for 66th all-time.
Seavey’s major challenges at Macon were few and far between as he quickly jumped out to a full second advantage just a few laps into the contest. On the tight confines of the 1/5-mile at Macon, the traffic and the curb are those unsavory shadowy figures that are always lurking around the corner, and Seavey found that to be the case just 10 laps into it.
“I could see the back of the field and it was treacherous,” Seavey remarked. “The curb was right up against the wall, and it was big. You could get into the wall really easily on both ends getting off. I was just trying to keep my eyes peeled for anything happening in front of me.”
As many drivers will tell you, it’s difficult being the leader despite the status. Knowing where you need to be on the racetrack is always a mighty task when the entire field is behind you, watching, testing and altering different paths on the fly. Seavey found himself in that envious – but sometimes not as envious as it seems at times – throughout.
“I really didn’t know where to be,” Seavey revealed. “I felt like I was okay on the top. I was only gaining a little bit on the lappers, and I didn’t know how great I was. I was really kind of happy once we got to traffic and I felt like I could put a few behind me, and hopefully, put a few in between me and second place. We were able to hold on after all those yellows. I didn’t even know if we were good or if they were right behind us or what was going on, but I was doing my best to keep this thing out front.”
The final caution, on lap 25, reset the field after Thomas Meseraull and Gavin Miller nearly tangled in their battle for second, causing Miller to drop back multiple positions after the turn two encounter. However, at the very same moment, Jake Andreotti (12th) spun in turn one, granting a reprieve for Miller to return to second for the ensuing restart. Meanwhile, under yellow, Meseraull pulled off to pits and did not return, dropping him all the way back to 20th in the final running order.
Just like he was all day, Seavey was undenied down the stretch during the final six lap run, defeating the field by a 1.110 second margin. Gavin Miller collected a fine second place result with Tanner Thorson third, Zach Daum fourth and Karter Sarff scoring a career best USAC run of fifth.
Gavin Miller put together his most successful weekend thus far during his USAC National Midget Rookie season. The Allentown, Pa. racer finished fifth on Friday at Illinois’ Wayne County Speedway and finished the weekend with a runner-up result at Macon in his Keith Kunz-Curb-Agajanian Motorsports/Eibach Springs – Mobil 1/Bullet By Spike/Speedway Toyota.
Tanner Thorson (Minden, Nev.) admittedly missed the setup initially for the 30-lap feature, still running as far back as ninth with less than 20 laps remaining. But after adjusting his shocks and readjusting his approach by sticking to the bottom line, he found his groove and drove to a third-place result at Macon in his Tanner Thorson Racing/James Hodge Auto Group – Smith Titanium/Spike/Stanton SR-11x.
It was quite a return to USAC National Midget racing for Daniel Adler. The Saint Louis, Missouri racer made his first USAC National Midget start since 2017, and in his first series start in six years, he made a hard-charging effort, advancing from his 22nd starting spot to finish eighth aboard his Mike Adler/Hormann Innovative Door Systems – BP Fab/Ripper/Stanton SR-11.
Thorson also hit a milestone at Macon, becoming just the 36th driver to reach 200 career USAC National Midget feature starts.
Two of the oldest track records in the USAC National Midget history books were surpassed at Macon on Saturday. Daison Pursley broke Page Jones’ 10-lap heat race record from 1992. During the semi, Chase McDermand reset the 12-lap semi-feature mark, which was set on that same night 31 years ago by Fred Tegarden Jr.