Terre Haute, Indiana (April 13, 2025)………In the long history of USAC Silver Crown racing at Indiana’s Terre Haute Action Track, no driver had ever won the Sumar Classic in consecutive years. That is, until Logan Seavey.
In fact, the Sutter, California driver has now collected a pair of Sumar Classic wins a six month span, taking last October’s round and then backing it up on Sunday night in the 21st running of the event, which opened the 2025 series season.
Seavey worked his way up through the field from his fourth place starting spot before capitalizing on Daison Pursley’s “bike” on lap 55 to take over the lead. Seavey then secured the victory by successfully navigating a green-white-checkered restart to grab the win in his Rice Motorsports-Abacus Racing/Bloomington Bison – Indy Custom Stone – CG CPAs/DRC/Felker Chevy.
In what was the 300th dirt race in USAC Silver Crown history, Seavey punctuated the night with his 10th career USAC Silver Crown victory, tying Gary Bettenhausen, Mike Bliss and Tanner Swanson for 11th place all-time.
When it comes to dirt 1/2-miles in the USAC Silver Crown series, no driver of this era has been more successful than Seavey. Of his 10 career series victories, eight have come on dirt 1/2-miles. That already ranks second all-time behind only Jack Hewitt’s nine.
To open the night, Mitchel Moles was the dominant force, recording the fastest lap in Dirt Draft Practice and then scoring the pole position with a fast lap of 20.896 seconds in Honest Abe Roofing Qualifying. That made Moles a perfect three-for-three on qualifying for the weekend after also taking fast time honors with the USAC AMSOIL Sprint Car National Championship on Friday at Lincoln Park Speedway and on Saturday at Lawrenceburg Speedway.
However, at the drop of the green flag for the feature, it was the two Chris Dyson Racing cars wrenched by Sean Michael that flexed their muscles. Outside front row starter Pursley slid into the lead while third place starting Bacon slotted into second. Seavey, meanwhile, popped into third while Moles fell to fourth on the opening lap.
On the 28th lap, Bacon nearly tagged the outside guardrail between turns three and four, losing significant ground while opening the door for Seavey to march through. By lap 30, Seavey was in position to capitalize when he dug in on the bottom of turns one and two to power by Bacon for the runner-up spot, demonstrating the fact that he was letting the race and the track come to him.
“I told my spotter, ‘man, I don’t really like now that the cushion is up on the flat,’” Seavey recalled. “It went from down on the banking to instantly on the flat against the wall and really big. I didn’t really like the look of it. I was a little bit tight early and that wasn’t ideal for me. I was trying to run off it as long as I could until the track came to me.”
By halfway, the top-two of Pursley and Seavey had broken away from the rest of the field. On lap 55, Pursley’s night very nearly came to an end when he got up on two wheels and made contact with the outside turn four guardrail. Seavey once again saw daylight and drove by to occupy the number one spot with 46 laps remaining.
“Daison started to get a little bit tight there as I was closing in and then he biked massively and I was just able to capitalize,” Seavey explained. “It would’ve been really hard to pass as hard as we were running the top, so I was trying to push him a little bit. He’s got a spotter in his ear telling him I was four or five seconds back. He was running harder and I was staying right with him, just trying to keep his spotter in his ear and making him run harder and harder and it bit him pretty good over in three and four. I knew it was going to be really hard to slide him. I probably would’ve crashed sending it in there. I had to pass him a little different way and try to make him make a mistake.”
With 35 laps to go, Seavey was forced to fight his way through a wall of six cars at the tail of the lead lap. The congestion on the track briefly caused a congestion headache for Seavey, which allowed Pursley to close the gap to within a couple car lengths. But on lap 70, Pursley’s second wind came to a screeching halt as he snagged the turn four cushion with his right rear tire, which clockwised his car 180 degrees before it came to a rest to bring out the caution. Pursley restarted at the tail but ultimately dropped out after completing 95 laps to finish 13th.
Seavey had things well in hand down the stretch, constructing a massive lead of 11.756 seconds with less than five laps to go, even clipping the turn four guardrail with his right rear tire for good measure. Fortunately for him, it was no harm, no foul as he tried to test the delicate balance between staying patient and outrunning his competition. A true catch 22.
“It’s kind of tough,” Seavey admitted. “You want to go a little bit slower and save your stuff but then you just hit the cushion, and without the tires spinning, it makes it worse. There were 10 laps there where (spotter) Daniel (Whitley) was telling me I had a big lead and I kept getting tight and screwing up. It’s a catch 22. You want to calm down, but the more you try to back up your corner, you just get tighter and then you’re in the fence even harder. It’s tricky. It’s another Silver Crown race that felt like a sprint car race. We were hammering for 100 laps straight.”
Seavey’s massive lead evaporated on lap 98 of 100 when late model star Ricky Thornton Jr., making his USAC Silver Crown debut, slowed to a stop at the bottom of turn four with a flat right rear tire while running eighth. In the end, he wound up 12th in the running order.
On the ensuing restart, Seavey attempted to slide himself into turn one, but it nearly backed him up as he spun his tires while drifting up to the top of turn two, allowing Bacon to close within a car length of Seavey’s rear bumper. Nonetheless, Seavey got back on the horse and managed to gap himself from Bacon and the rest of the field to cross the finish line 0.945 seconds ahead.
Justin Grant’s last lap, last turn pass delivered him a runner-up finish with Bacon taking third, Briggs Danner fourth and C.J. Leary rounding out the top-five.
After initially qualifying 16th, Chase Dietz’s time was disallowed due to a weight infraction, which relegated him to the 20th starting spot for the feature. Dietz hustled his way up the field 14 positions to finish sixth to earn Rod End Supply Hard Charger honors.
The Inferno Armor Fire Move of the Night went to Saban Bibent who made a terrific comeback after enduring a vicious sprint car crash 24 hours earlier at Lawrenceburg Speedway. At Terre Haute, Bibent went 17th to 11th to earn his best career USAC Silver Crown finish in just his third start.
USAC SILVER CROWN NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP RACE RESULTS: April 13, 2025 – Terre Haute Action Track – Terre Haute, Indiana – 1/2-Mile Dirt Oval – 21st Sumar Classic
HONEST ABE ROOFING QUALIFYING: 1. Mitchel Moles, 19, Reinbold/Underwood-20.896; 2. Daison Pursley, 09, Dyson-20.899; 3. Brady Bacon, 9, Dyson-20.928; 4. Logan Seavey, 22, Rice/Abacus-20.981; 5. Justin Grant, 91, Hemelgarn-21.040; 6. Ricky Thornton Jr., 20, Team AZ/Petty/Rossi-21.249; 7. Matt Westfall, 54, 4 Kings-21.309; 8. C.J. Leary, 21, Team AZ/Petty/Rossi-21.403; 9. Briggs Danner, 10, DMW-21.405; 10. Jimmy Light, 118, Thomas-21.449; 11. Kody Swanson, 24, Haggenbottom-21.502; 12. Kaylee Bryson, 26, Pierce-21.575; 13. Chase Stockon, 69, Pink 69-21.904; 14. Jake Swanson, 6, Klatt-21.956; 15. Kyle Steffens, 8, Steffens-21.985; 16. Trey Osborne, 81, Lovelace-22.175; 17. Shane Cockrum, 97, Lein-22.344; 18. Saban Bibent, 88, Fetter-22.593; 19. Gregg Cory, 32, Williams/Cory-24.429; 20. Bill Rose, 66, Rose-NT; 21. Aric Gentry, 3, Simmons-NT; 22. Kenny Gentry, 18, Gentry-NT; 23. Dave Berkheimer, 31, Berkheimer-NT; 24. Mario Clouser, 92, Kazmark-NT; 25. Chase Dietz, 86, Lee-22.161 (time disallowed due to weight infraction).
FEATURE: (100 laps, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Logan Seavey (4), 2. Justin Grant (5), 3. Brady Bacon (3), 4. Briggs Danner (9), 5. C.J. Leary (8), 6. Chase Dietz (20), 7. Matt Westfall (7), 8. Kaylee Bryson (12), 9. Mitchel Moles (1), 10. Bill Rose (19), 11. Saban Bibent (17), 12. Ricky Thornton Jr. (6), 13. Daison Pursley (2), 14. Dave Berkheimer (23), 15. Shane Cockrum (16), 16. Kody Swanson (11), 17. Trey Osborne (15), 18. Jake Swanson (14), 19. Chase Stockon (13), 20. Jimmy Light (10), 21. Kenny Gentry (22), 22. Aric Gentry (21), 23. Gregg Cory (18). 54:08.78
FEATURE LAP LEADERS: Laps 1-54 Daison Pursley, Laps 55-100 Logan Seavey.
USAC SILVER CROWN NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS: 1-Logan Seavey-70, 2-Justin Grant-67, 3-Brady Bacon-64, 4-Briggs Danner-61, 5-C.J. Leary-58, 6-Chase Dietz-55, 7-Matt Westfall-55, 8-Kaylee Bryson-49, 9-Mitchel Moles-46, 10-Bill Rose-43.
USAC NATIONAL PARALLAX GROUP PASSING MASTER POINTS: 1-Kale Drake-55, 2-C.J. Leary-47, 3-Briggs Danner-36, 4-Jadon Rogers-26, 5-Chase Stockon-24, 6-Kyle Cummins-19, 7-Robert Ballou-18, 8-Jake Swanson-17, 9-Justin Grant-15, 10-Kayla Roell-15.
NEXT USAC SILVER CROWN NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP RACE: April 19, 2025 – Toledo Speedway – Toledo, Ohio – 1/2-Mile Dirt Oval – Hemelgarn Racing/Super Fitness Rollie Beale Classic
CONTINGENCY AWARD WINNERS:
Dirt Draft Practice Fastest Driver: Mitchel Moles (20.395)
Honest Abe Roofing Fast Qualifier: Mitchel Moles (20.896)
Rod End Supply Hard Charger: Chase Dietz (20th to 6th)
Inferno Armor Fire Move of the Race: Saban Bibent