By Richie Murray
Jennerstown, Pennsylvania (August 10, 2024)………Kody Swanson’s one and only previous visit to Pennsylvania’s Jennerstown Speedway came in a late model back in 2021 and concluded with an unsavory encounter with the outside wall and a torn up racecar to boot.
From famine to feast, the Kingsburg, California racer’s next trip to Jennerstown on Saturday night was about as polar opposite as it comes in the high stakes world of motorsports during the USAC Silver Crown debut at the .522-mile paved oval.
Swanson started from the pole position and led all 100 laps in succession after recently having surgery to remove two screws from his left foot following an offseason accident away from the racetrack. It was Swanson’s record-extending 44th career USAC Silver Crown win and his fourth series triumph of the season. In fact, 17 of his 44 career series victories have come after capturing the pole position and leading every lap.
On pavement tracks alone in his Silver Crown career, Swanson has now won 29 times at eight different venues in his USAC Silver Crown career. Swanson’s mark of eight different pavement tracks won at are now tied for the most all-time alongside Dave Steele and Brian Tyler.
In adding another victory to his tally, Swanson also padded his current championship point lead to the tune of a 55-point margin. Swanson’s first open wheel appearance at Jennerstown also resulted in the 15th different track he’s won at in his career with the series, dirt and pavement combined, which is already an all-time record.
“The beauty of Silver Crown racing is you’ve got to adapt, and I think that’s the part that’s most fun about it,” Swanson noted. “We run dirt races, we run pavement, we run big tracks, we run little ones and tricky ones in between. That’s the part I love.”
Interestingly enough, USAC’s most recent event held at Jennerstown came 55 years earlier in a 1969 midget race won by Bob Tattersall when the track surface was dirt. Swanson’s path to victory on Saturday night was paved with $10,000 in rewards after starting from the pole position for the record-extending 52nd time of his career.
Swanson’s qualifying run provided him with a one-lap Silver Crown track record at eight different tracks: Kansas’ Belleville High Banks, Iowa Speedway, Illinois’ World Wide Technology Raceway, Wisconsin’s Madison International Speedway, Indiana’s Salem Speedway and Winchester Speedway, Ohio’s Toledo Speedway and now Pennsylvania’s Jennerstown Speedway.
For Swanson and his Doran-Binks Racing/Mission Foods – Wilke Orthodontics – Glenn Farms/Beast/Lanci Ford, it was a masterful turnaround from the practice session 24 hours earlier. Swanson’s best lap of Friday’s test was a mere 18.314 seconds, which would’ve put him mid-pack in Saturday’s field. Needless to say, there was nothing mid-pack about Swanson on when all was said and done.
“It was a mess yesterday and even today,” Swanson explained. “We borrowed the series’ scales to check the thing on the lift and tried to just keep working on it. These guys stuck with me and I’m really thankful it worked out. You never know if it will be good or not. When I was getting into the car to start the feature, I said, ‘I guess we’ll find out.’ I didn’t know if we were making the right decisions or not, but the effort was there and that’s all you can ask. As a driver, it’s your job to put your helmet on and go out and try to get it with whatever kind of car you’ve got. I’m really thankful tonight that this one was as good as it was.”
When the green flag dropped, Swanson established the early lead as Logan Seavey slotted into second and Dakoda Armstrong held strong in third. However, early race troubles befell eighth running Kaylee Bryson on lap seven as she suddenly slowed with a clutch issue, ultimately coasting to a stop on the back straightaway on lap nine and finishing her night abruptly with a 15th place result.
The most major incident of the race occurred on lap 29 as the frontrunners began to bear down on the tail end of the field. Entering turn one, sixth running Tyler Roahrig and 14th place Nathan Moore hooked bumpers, sending Moore spinning into the outside turn one wall, ending his evening with a 14th place result.
On the ensuing lap 33 restart, Armstrong edged ahead of Seavey on the outside for the second position in turns one and two. However, Seavey was able to shake off the pressure for the time being to recollect the spot. Armstrong continued to press Seavey for the next nine circuits until lap 42 when he charged under Seavey on the back straight to elevate into the runner-up spot.
At the moment, Swanson remained 1.2 seconds ahead as the race hit the halfway point. However, further back, 10th starting Taylor Ferns began to surge. Running seventh on lap 50 of 100, she blitzed past Roahrig for sixth on lap 52, past C.J. Leary for fifth on lap 65 and by Justin Grant for fourth in turn two on lap 68.
With 30 to go, Swanson’s primary challenger was Armstrong, the only driver to deny Swanson a Silver Crown pavement victory through the first five events thus far in 2024. Armstrong whittled Swanson’s lead down to three tenths while the pair navigated their way through traffic. However, Swanson got the word from above that he had company, and thus, he took matters into his own hands.
“As Dakoda was coming, I’ve got a great spotter who said, ‘hey, he’s closing and he’s doing this different,’” Swanson recalled of his spotter/wife Jordan Swanson announcing into his two-way radio communication. “Immediately, I knew what I had and what I was struggling with, so I started moving around. That’s the fun part about tracks like this. There are so many characteristics to them that you just move around and find something else you like. I ran a line I hadn’t run in two days, but it seemed to work and it kind of stabilized for a little while. It gave me a chance to figure out what I needed to do next and try to take advantage of lapped traffic to get away a little bit.”
In the aftermath, Swanson had broken open his lead to 1.27 seconds as he ably put fellow championship contenders Grant and Leary a lap down during the waning moments. All the while, Swanson’s lead ballooned to 2.149 seconds and never wavered from that moment onward.
At the finish line, Swanson crossed the line 3.907 seconds ahead of Dakoda Armstrong, Logan Seavey, Taylor Ferns and Bobby Santos who rounded out the top-five.
Following his first career Silver Crown victory in June at Wisconsin’s Madison International Speedway, Dakoda Armstrong (New Castle, Ind.) once again finished inside the top-two, scoring a runner-up result at Jennerstown in his C & A Motorsports/Meristem Crop Performance – Armstrong Farms/Beast/Stanton Chevy.
Fresh off his first USAC Indiana Sprint Week championship a week ago, Logan Seavey (Sutter, Calif.) once again landed on the podium of a USAC Silver Crown race in his second straight start aboard his Rice Motorsports-Abacus Racing/DiaEdge Mitsubishi Materials – STIDA.com/Beast/Felker Chevy. After scoring a second on the dirt at Kansas’ Salt City Speedway in July, the defending series champion landed a third in his debut on the pavement at Jennerstown.
Taylor Ferns (Shelby Township, Mich.) put on a show at Jennerstown as she raced her way from her 10th starting spot to a fourth place finish. Her plus-6 performance earned her hard charger honors en route to her best finish of the 2024 USAC Silver Crown season behind the wheel of her Taylor Ferns Racing/Bradford Allen – Mobil 1 – Motorsports Safety Group/Beast/Stanton Mopar. With those efforts in mind, Ferns was earned the Inferno Armor Fire Move of the Night.
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USAC SILVER CROWN NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP RESULTS: August 10, 2024 – Jennerstown Speedway – Jennerstown, Pennsylvania – .522-Mile Paved Oval – Silver Crown Showdown
HONEST ABE ROOFING QUALIFYING: 1. Kody Swanson, 77, Doran/Binks-18.019 (New Track Record); 2. Logan Seavey, 22, Rice/Abacus-18.033; 3. Dakoda Armstrong, 5, C & A-18.049; 4. Justin Grant, 91, Hemelgarn-18.062; 5. Tyler Roahrig, 41, Newman-18.088; 6. C.J. Leary, 6, Klatt-18.102; 7. Kaylee Bryson, 26, Pierce-18.163; 8. Bobby Santos, 98, DJ-18.176; 9. Nathan Byrd, 40, Legacy/Wilson-18.308; 10. Taylor Ferns, 555, Ferns-18.317; 11. Kyle Steffens, 08, Steffens-18.340; 12. Trey Osborne, 81, BCR-18.617; 13. Gregg Cory, 32, Williams/Cory-18.991; 14. Mike Haggenbottom, 24, Haggenbottom-19.614; 15. Nathan Moore, 48, Thomas/Moore-19.767; 16. Dave Berkheimer, 31, Berkheimer-27.633.
FEATURE: (100 laps, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Kody Swanson (1), 2. Dakoda Armstrong (3), 3. Logan Seavey (2), 4. Taylor Ferns (10), 5. Bobby Santos (8), 6. C.J. Leary (6), 7. Justin Grant (4), 8. Nathan Byrd (9), 9. Kyle Steffens (11), 10. Trey Osborne (12), 11. Mike Haggenbottom (14), 12. Gregg Cory (13), 13. Tyler Roahrig (5), 14. Nathan Moore (15), 15. Kaylee Bryson (7), 16. Dave Berkheimer (16). 34:11.01 (New Track Record)
FEATURE LAP LEADERS: Laps 1-100 Kody Swanson.
USAC SILVER CROWN NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS: 1-Kody Swanson-499, 2-Justin Grant-444, 3-Logan Seavey-437, 4-C.J. Leary-425, 5-Bobby Santos-308, 6-Trey Osborne-304, 7-Taylor Ferns-296, 8-Kaylee Bryson-293, 9-Kyle Steffens-291, 10-Gregg Cory-269.
USAC NATIONAL PROSOURCE PASSING MASTER POINTS: 1-Daison Pursley-147, 2-Logan Seavey-139, 3-Robert Ballou-126, 4-C.J. Leary-109, 5-Kyle Cummins-105, 6-Chase Stockon-99, 7-Justin Grant-97, 8-Joey Amantea-92, 9-Brady Bacon-90, 10-Kevin Thomas Jr.-90.
NEXT USAC SILVER CROWN NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP RACE: August 16, 2024 – World Wide Technology Raceway – Madison, Illinois – 1.25-Mile Paved Oval – Ranken Technical College Silver Crown Showdown Presented By Welsch Heating & Cooling
CONTINGENCY AWARD WINNERS:
Dirt Draft Practice Fastest Driver: Kody Swanson (18.000)
Honest Abe Roofing Fast Qualifier: Kody Swanson (18.019)
Hard Charger: Taylor Ferns (10th to 4th)
Inferno Armor Fire Move of the Race: Taylor Ferns