SPEEDWAY, Ind. — Throughout the past 70 years of USAC competition, racers hailing from the state of Maryland have seemingly been few and far between.
In 2025, Steven Snyder Jr. waved the Maryland flag proudly by earning accolades as the USAC NOS Energy Drink Midget National Championship Max Papis Innovations Bob Stroud Rookie of the Year.
Snyder, the 20-year-old from Rising Sun, Maryland, ranked eighth in series points after accruing six top fives and 12 top 10s while starting all 23 feature events throughout the 2025 season in his RMS Racing/EnviroFab – Vahlco Wheels – Rod End Supply – MPV Logistics/Spike/Speedway Toyota.
Positioning himself as the top Rookie in the standings from start to finish throughout the season, Snyder finished a best of second during April’s Kokomo Grand Prix at Indiana’s Kokomo Speedway and November’s Hangtown 100 at California’s Placerville Speedway.
Snyder led the first six laps of the 4-Crown Nationals in September at Ohio’s Eldora Speedway and added a fast qualifying time during the Chase Johnson Classic in November at Merced Speedway.
Despite an absence from the win column, Snyder and the team’s goal of earning USAC National Midget Rookie of the Year honors was solidified right out of the box and cemented with continued solid performances throughout the trail.
“We had a goal going into this year of trying to win (Rookie of the Year),” Snyder said. “It’s definitely neat to see that, with the Rookie class we had this year, our team was able to come out on top.”
As for the rarity of a Maryland driver making an impact in USAC circles, Snyder is the first driver hailing from the Old Line State to ever appear in the USAC National Midget point standings. Furthermore, he’s only the second Marylander of any kind to make an appearance in the standings. Car owner John Burkett from Williamsport, Maryland etched a place in the series’ entrant standings in 1967 and 1970. Snyder is prideful of those roots.
“It’s cool to be the only driver from Maryland to ever do it,” Snyder beamed. “At the end of a race night, fans have come up to me and have seen the Maryland flag on the belt of my suit. People will ask what that is, and I’ve got to explain that I’m from Maryland and this is my flag.”
Aside from his Maryland upbringing, Snyder also had a quite unusual path in that his family never raced. His uncle, Cody Jourdan, took him to a .25 Midget Driver Experience program when he was four or five years old, which proved to be young Steven’s first behind the wheel encounter. With the support of his family and father, Steven Snyder, the young driver turned motorsports into something he strived to make a living in.
Snyder already possesses a strong resume across a wide variety of racing machinery. With USAC’s .25 Midget division, he earned a total of six championships between 2013-2018 on both dirt and pavement tracks. In 2021, he scored the Action Track USA 600 Wingless Sprint title. A highly accomplished micro sprint racer, his 2021 victory in the KKM Giveback Classic at Oklahoma’s Port City Raceway brought him national attention. Back in June of this year, Snyder grabbed his first 410 winged sprint car win at Tri-City Raceway Park with a dramatic last lap pass in the Western Pennsylvania Sprint Speedweek finale.
That said, racing can throw all kinds of curveballs at you, and how you respond to them is what is going to define you. Steven Snyder Jr. withstood all of that to earn himself (and his state) a place in the USAC record books.
“Racing is so humbling,” Snyder admitted. “You’ll have a lot of up and down nights. You take the highs when you can get them and you take the lows when they come your way. Coming right out of the box and finishing second was awesome, but then there was more of a learning curve. It’s been cool to see how this team has been able to constantly improve throughout the year.”
