HAUBSTADT, Ind. — Kevin Thomas Jr. captured both the battle and the war during Saturday night’s USAC NOS Energy Drink Indiana Sprint Week Presented by Honest Abe Roofing finale at Haubstadt’s Tri-State Speedway.
As it turned out, the Cullman, Alabama racer was faced with fending off the same driver, Logan Seavey, to win the feature victory and the 38th annual Indiana Sprint Week championship.
Thomas checked both off the list in one fell swoop as he led the remaining 20 circuits of the 30-lap feature to earn the victory while also accruing enough points to surpass Seavey and become a three-time ISW titlist, following previous crowns in 2017 and 2021.
In achieving his record extending ninth career USAC AMSOIL Sprint Car National Championship feature victory at Tri-State, Thomas notched his 47th career series victory.
Thomas provided car owner Hank Byram of Rock Steady Racing his first Indiana Sprint Week championship after a quarter century of trying. For Byram and his No. 3R, it was their 33rd career USAC National Sprint Car feature victory.
For his efforts, Thomas pocketed $33,000 on the night between his with $8,000 for winning the feature to go along with a $25,000 payday for his third Indiana Sprint Week championship, which he now owns three of, one of only drivers to capture three or more ISW titles along with four-time champs Kevin Thomas (no relation) and Levi Jones, and fellow three-timer Dave Darland.
“My team did a great job with the race car,” Thomas praised. “From IMS on, I don’t think we ran off the podium but maybe three times (in eight races). We’ve been really working all year. We struggled for the first half of the year but these guys, they just don’t quit. They keep trying and trying and trying until we finally found something. 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.”
Thomas was seemingly a man on a mission from the get-go on Saturday night, nearly maximizing every opportunity on the board, garnering 83 of the maximum 84 points available throughout the night. T
railing Seavey by four markers going into the night, Thomas gained five via after qualifying second quickest to lead ahead of Seavey. Thomas then advanced from sixth to first to win his heat and gain eight points, two more than Seavey did in his third-place heat race run.
Entering the final feature of the 38th edition of Indiana Sprint Week, Thomas’ lead in the series stood at three over Seavey. For all intents and purposes, the objective for Thomas was to finish ahead of Seavey.
As the wheelman of the Rock Steady Racing/Inferno Armor – Lucas Oil Center – Creative Finishing/Mach-1/Stanton Chevy, Thomas started his race from the fifth position while fellow title contender Seavey lined up 13th.
Meanwhile, outside front row starter Briggs Danner had a far outside chance of claiming the title, needing to win the feature and also have Thomas and Seavey both finish 20th or worse in order to have an opportunity.
Danner did his part in the early stages of the race by pacing the field for the initial 10 laps while being challenged by Jadon Rogers and being closed in on by Thomas who had slotted into third.
By lap 11, traffic loomed for the Danner up front. While he worked on trying to find his way around the 22nd place car driven by Rookie Eli Wilhelmus, Thomas had disposed of Rogers for second with an inside move inside turns three and four.
By the time Thomas reached turns three and four a half lap later, he was right on Danner’s back bumper for the lead. Finding an opening on the bottom, Thomas used Wilhelmus as a pick with Danner getting pinned behind him while Thomas shot underneath to lead at the stripe by a half car length over Danner.
At the halfway mark, Seavey was still mired in 10th, 30 points out of contention for ISW title while Thomas was enjoying his ride at the front of the pack.
Suddenly, Thomas had company in the form of Robert Ballou who slid up in front of Danner off turn four for the third spot on lap 20. Three trips around the quarter-mile dirt oval later, Ballou took second from Rogers with a back straightaway pass for the runner-up spot on lap 23.
With four laps to go, Thomas was in complete control with an eight-car-length advantage ahead of Ballou.
Behind him, the battle for fourth was getting hot and heavy between Danner, Mitchel Moles and the surging Seavey. But as Danner attempted to slide Moles for the spot in turn one, his rear wheels locked up right in front of Moles.
Moles tapped Danner’s rear bumper, refiring Danner, while he became a casualty himself, gliding to a halt to bring out the yellow on lap 27.
Seavey was suddenly in fifth, and over the next couple of laps following the restart, he charged past Danner then Rogers to climb his way into third.
A caution for a spin by Kayla Roell necessitated a caution on the final lap and halted Thomas’ beeline to the finish line.
Seavey was positioned in third behind Thomas and Ballou for the first green-white-checkered attempt, which spelled doom for Ballou who dramatically slowed due to a lack of fuel on the white flag lap.
Behind him, a calamity ensued as drivers scattered to avoid contact with Ballou’s sputtering machine. However, Danner first got into the back Ballou and spun to a stop in turn four.
Ballou pulled off, handing second to Seavey with two laps remaining. At that point, the picture became crystal clear. Between Thomas and Seavey, whoever finished ahead of the other was going to be the Indiana Sprint Week champion.
That certainly caught the attention of Thomas.
“I was feeling good, but I kept seeing that 57 (of Seavey) up on the board,” Thomas noticed. “I was like, ‘I better not screw this up.’ He kept me honest. I was glad to do battle with him all week. He’s one of my better friends, so I knew that whenever I saw Ballou roll into the work area, I was pretty nervous but nervous is good. Nervous is pressure and you deserve it if you put yourself in that spot.”
Thomas kept his cool on the lap 29 restart, plus the final pair of tours around Tri-State to beat Seavey to the line for the win and the Indiana Sprint Week championship by 0.839 seconds and six points, respectively.
Rogers finished third while C.J. Leary took fourth and Kyle Cummins rounded out the top five.
While Seavey came up just one position and six points short of becoming the first back-to-back Indiana Sprint Week champion since Bryan Clauson in 2013-2014, Seavey did make an all-out effort in advancing from 13th to second. He also grabbed the Indiana Sprint Week Parallax Group Passing Master title after passing 52 cars throughout the eight race series.
USAC AMSOIL Sprint Car National Championship, Tri-State Speedway, Haubstadt, Ind., Aug. 2, 2025
HONEST ABE ROOFING QUALIFYING: 1. Mitchel Moles, 19AZ, Reinbold/Underwood-13.340; 2. Kevin Thomas Jr., 3R, Rock Steady-13.389; 3. Jadon Rogers, 5, Baldwin/Fox-13.419; 4. Robert Ballou, 12, Ballou-13.576; 5. Chase Stockon, 92, Sertich-13.656; 6. Briggs Danner, 39, Hogue-13.674; 7. Logan Calderwood, 6, Ford-13.700; 8. C.J. Leary, 21AZ, Team AZ/Curb-Agajanian-13.714; 9. Hayden Reinbold, 19, Reinbold/Underwood-13.717; 10. Gunnar Setser, 5G, KO-13.745; 11. Logan Seavey, 57, Abacus-13.758; 12. Jake Swanson, 5T, Daming Swanson-13.855; 13. Kyle Cummins, 3p, Petty-13.948; 14. Kendall Ruble, 17, Ruble-13.978; 15. Charles Davis Jr., 47, Davis-13.978; 16. Carson Short, 21m, Edwards-13.984; 17. Kale Drake, 2B, 2B Racing-14.010; 18. Eli Wilhelmus, 55, Wilhelmus-14.017; 19. Kayla Roell, 4K, Roell-14.044; 20. Ricky Lewis, 41, Lewis-14.063; 21. Harley Burns, 16, Britt Aero-14.166; 22. Adyn Schmidt, 12s, Schmidt-14.227; 23. Aric Gentry, 10, Gentry-14.245; 24. Travis Millar, 93AU, Millar-14.302; 25. Brady Short, 61m, Edwards-14.333; 26. Sam Scott, 7s, Scott-14.417; 27. Chance Crum, 83c, Crum-14.440; 28. Collin Ambrose, 36, Ambrose-14.474; 29. Troy Carey, 45N, Carey-14.482; 30. Sam Hinds, 71H, Hinds-14.518; 31. Donny Brackett, 4B, Brackett-14.644; 32. Geoff Ensign, 00, Anderson-14.653; 33. Kyle Shipley, 0G, Black Gold-14.710; 34. Carson Garrett, 15, BGE-14.716; 35. Brandon Mattox, 28, Mattox-14.733; 36. James Boyd, 16B, Boyd-14.857; 37. Tony Helton, 87, Helton-15.101; 38. Kobe Simpson, 21K, Simpson-15.537; 39. Steve Justis, 12J, Justis-15.913.
CAR IQ FIRST HEAT: (10 laps, top 5 transfer to the feature) 1. Kyle Cummins, 2. Harley Burns, 3. Mitchel Moles, 4. Kale Drake, 5. Hayden Reinbold, 6. Chase Stockon, 7. Brady Short, 8. Troy Carey, 9. Kyle Shipley, 10. Tony Helton. 2:15.367
K1 RACEGEAR SECOND HEAT: (10 laps, top 5 transfer to the feature) 1. Kevin Thomas Jr., 2. Eli Wilhelmus, 3. Gunnar Setser, 4. Kendall Ruble, 5. Briggs Danner, 6. Sam Scott, 7. Adyn Schmidt, 8. Sam Hinds, 9. Kobe Simpson, 10. Carson Garrett. 2:18.975
USAC GEAR THIRD HEAT: (10 laps, top 5 transfer to the feature) 1. Kayla Roell, 2. Charles Davis Jr., 3. Logan Seavey, 4. Jadon Rogers, 5. Logan Calderwood, 6. Aric Gentry, 7. Chance Crum, 8. Donny Brackett, 9. Brandon Mattox, 10. Steve Justis. NT
COOK OUT FOURTH HEAT: (10 laps, top 5 transfer to the feature) 1. C.J. Leary, 2. Robert Ballou, 3. Carson Short, 4. Jake Swanson, 5. Ricky Lewis, 6. Collin Ambrose, 7. Travis Millar, 8. James Boyd, 9. Geoff Ensign. 2:19.258
ELLIOTT’S CUSTOM TRAILERS & CARTS SEMI: (12 laps, top 4 transfer to the feature) 1. Chase Stockon, 2. Adyn Schmidt, 3. Aric Gentry, 4. Collin Ambrose, 5. Sam Scott, 6. Travis Millar, 7. Chance Crum, 8. Donny Brackett, 9. Sam Hinds, 10. James Boyd, 11. Troy Carey, 12. Tony Helton, 13. Kobe Simpson, 14. Kyle Shipley, 15. Geoff Ensign, 16. Steve Justis. NT
FEATURE: (31 laps, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Kevin Thomas Jr. (5), 2. Logan Seavey (13), 3. Jadon Rogers (4), 4. C.J. Leary (7), 5. Kyle Cummins (8), 6. Jake Swanson (14), 7. Logan Calderwood (1), 8. Kale Drake (18), 9. Kayla Roell (9), 10. Mitchel Moles (6), 11. Harley Burns (21), 12. Robert Ballou (3), 13. Ricky Lewis (20), 14. Hayden Reinbold (11), 15. Chase Stockon (10), 16. Briggs Danner (2), 17. Carson Short (17), 18. Charles Davis Jr. (16), 19. Adyn Schmidt (22), 20. Kendall Ruble (15), 21. Gunnar Setser (12), 22. Eli Wilhelmus (19), 23. Aric Gentry (23), 24. Kobe Simpson (25-P), 25. Collin Ambrose (24).
