By Richie Murray
Speedway, Indiana (January 31, 2024)………Logan Seavey will tackle the full 2024 USAC national schedule with full-time duties in Silver Crown, AMSOIL National Sprint Car and NOS Energy Drink National Midget competition in an attempt to become the third driver to capture a USAC Triple Crown championship season.
Seavey earned two of the three USAC national titles in 2023 in the Silver Crown and National Midget divisions, doubling his reward to $100,000 for scoring both championships. Earning the USAC Triple Crown by winning all three division championships in 2024 will net a driver a total reward of $400,000.
Only two individuals have ever achieved a USAC Triple Crown season by winning driving titles in all three USAC national series: Tony Stewart in 1995 and J.J. Yeley in 2003.
But here’s the catch for Seavey in 2024. The Sutter, Calif. driver will compete in all three series for Abacus Racing, who will attempt to defend their midget title as well as their Silver Crown championship in conjunction with Rice Motorsports. New to the equation for Abacus in 2024 is the addition of a full-time USAC Sprint Car team.
By comparison, Stewart drove for multiple teams during his USAC Triple Crown campaign (Glen Niebel and Steve Lewis) as did Yeley (Bob East/Tony Stewart and Steve Lewis). Seavey’s nemesis, fellow 2024 USAC Triple Crown competitor Justin Grant, will also pursue the feat with three different organizations (Hemelgarn Racing, TOPP Motorsports and RMS Racing).
Seavey will take on the 99-race USAC national schedule with the same familiar pieces who surrounded his efforts in 2023. Ronnie Gardner, the 2023 USAC Chief Mechanic of the Year, will turn the wrenches on the Silver Crown car while Kirk Simpson will be the crew chief for the sprint car team and Johnny Cofer will serve in the same role on the midget.
“Only a couple of guys have won all three in one year, and not many even get the opportunity to try it, so to get the chance to try for all three series titles in one year is pretty cool,” Seavey stated. “I never thought I would get to race out here and now we’re out here full-time, 100-some races a year. And it definitely doesn’t happen often to basically do it with one team. We’re living the dream.”
Abacus burst onto the scene last year in their first full USAC National Midget season with Seavey, winning eight features en route to the championship. Abacus debuted with the Silver Crown series in 2023, joining Rice’s team as a co-entrant and broke through by winning three times on their path to the title. With the brand-new USAC Sprint car effort, Abacus hopes for the same initial success, hitting the ground running beginning with the season opener on February 9 at Florida’s Ocala Speedway.
“It’s going to be tough with a brand-new team, new cars and engines and all this stuff, and other variables that come into it,” Seavey admitted. “I don’t even know if it’s the toughest one, per se, but the sprint car schedule is just so long, anything can happen throughout the season. It kind of allows you to make some mistakes, maybe, and catch up from them. But when you’re racing against guys like Brady Bacon, Justin Grant, Robert Ballou, Kevin Thomas Jr., Kyle Cummins and more, those guys are pretty good every single night, so you don’t really have a lot of room to miss.”
From the beginning, Abacus Racing team principal Brent Cox’s plans always included acquiring a sprint car for Seavey to run, and in 2024, that’s come to fruition.
“When I met with Logan in December of 2022 to get him to drive the midget, the deal was to run the midget and help to kind of put our team on the map, then go sprint car racing in 2024,” Cox explained. “We certainly exceeded expectations in the midget, so we felt inclined to give it a shot and see what we can do with that while also going sprint car racing, which has always been a dream of mine and here we are.”
Cox’s inherent drive to succeed with Abacus Racing’s USAC Sprint Car program is exactly the same as it is for the Midget and Silver Crown teams. The common denominator behind the wheel of those machines is Seavey, and Cox wouldn’t have it any other way.
“Our expectations are high, but we also know how competitive the USAC Sprint Car series is,” Cox acknowledged. “The midget was a bit of an outlier, and we won the Silver Crown series by seven points. We’re confident we’ll do well in the sprint car, but we also know it’s a brand-new thing for us and Logan. We don’t feel like we could have a better driver to do it with than Logan.”
On the USAC Silver Crown program, Rice and Abacus formally came together in name at the beginning of the 2023 season. But they officially melded together following a July accident, due to a broken wheel, at Winchester (Ind.) Speedway, which required wholesale repairs on the entire machine. Working together furiously, the team got the car back together in time to finish fifth in the ensuing round at Ohio’s Toledo Speedway, which made all the difference in keeping their championship hopes alive.
“Brent and I met at the Chili Bowl the year before, so everything kind of happened really fast,” 2021 and 2023 USAC Silver Crown entrant champion Rice remembered. “We really didn’t know each other all that well until Winchester. When we crashed there, it was a massive effort by a lot of people, and if we wouldn’t have had the Abacus guys to help and to take it up to their shop so they could work on it while Ronnie was at work, we would’ve never been ready. That’s when the team really came together as more of a ‘team’ rather than individual teams. This year, I think we’re going to be more prepared and more organized. We know each other now and we have more of a gameplan earlier in the year, so hopefully, we can implement that on the racetrack.”
For Rice, who hired Seavey prior to the 2020 Silver Crown season, it’s the feeling of having the perfect puzzle pieces of driver, crew and team all jelling together just perfectly at the exact right time.
“Logan’s a huge part of how quickly the race team grew as fast as it did,” Rice praised. “Without him being able to bring a fifth-place car home fifth instead of crashing it, that allowed us to go to the next race and learn even more. If he had crashed a couple cars, we would’ve been in a lot of trouble. By Logan taking care of the equipment early on in our development, it was very crucial to where we are now.”
For Seavey, the plan is set and the goal is clear. After winning two out of three USAC national titles a year ago, the hunger and desire to grab a third has him thrilled, especially to be able to do it with the same group of people he had so much success with in 2023.
“Overall, it gives me comfort and confidence knowing that every time I go to the track this year, I’m working with the same people,” Seavey explained. “With the momentum we have, I don’t want to say ‘we expect’ because it’s going to be tough. But I don’t think you can ever not be disappointed to not win a championship. Obviously, that’s the goal. If you’re not a little bit disappointed when you get beat, you’re not doing the right thing. It’s a competitive sport, and if you’re not looking for more when you’re getting beat, you’re not going to catch up. Our goal is to win all three, and if we don’t, we’re going to be a little disappointed. We’re going to give it our best effort, and to win all three in one year would be crazy.”
The Rice Motorsports/Abacus Racing USAC Silver Crown ride will consist of a DRC chassis on dirt and a Beast chassis on pavement with a Felker Racing Engine under the hood while carrying sponsorship from STIDA and Legacy 40.
Abacus Racing’s sprint car will be a DRC chassis with both 1-Way Technologies and Stanton power while the team’s midget will have a Stanton SR-11x engine between the frame rails of a Spike chassis. Primary sponsors on the sprint car and midget will be CG CPAs, Indy Custom Stone, Forecheck Marketing and Dozerz Nutz & Boltz.