By Richie Murray
Winchester, Indiana (June 27, 2025)………It had been more than a quarter century since a driver had won four consecutive races within a single USAC division at Indiana’s Winchester Speedway.
Throughout Friday night’s 34th running of the Rich Vogler Classic, Kody Swanson made certain it was going to be him as he swept the entire night of events at the 37 degree high-banked 1/2-mile paved oval.
Swanson (Kingsburg, California) started off the evening fastest in Dirt Draft Practice, then followed up by setting fast time in Honest Abe Roofing Qualifying before leading all 100 laps from the pole position aboard his Doran Binks Racing/Mission Foods – Wilke Orthodontics – Glenn Farms/Beast/Lanci Ford.
For Swanson, he partied like it was 1999 as only three previous drivers had won four-straight USAC main events at Winchester, the last two of which occurred 26 seasons ago.
Steve Chassey remains the all-time record holder with five consecutive USAC National Sprint Car victories at Winchester in 1979. Dave Steele collected four-in-a-row with the USAC National Sprint Cars in 1998-1999. Most recently, Ryan Newman corralled four straight USAC National Midget triumphs spanning 1998-1999.
Swanson has now authored four USAC Silver Crown wins at Winchester in succession, taking top honors in 2022-2023-2024-2025. Furthermore, Swanson also added another Rich Vogler Classic victory to his resume after also making winner’s circle visits in 2016 and 2019 when the event was held at Indianapolis Raceway Park.
He’s already the winningest USAC Silver Crown driver in the history of IRP, and over the past four years, Swanson has made a nice home for himself on the Winchester high banks.
“You come in here and respect the place because of how fast it is,” Swanson explained. “I used to struggle coming to the high banks and I remember them saying when I first moved here that, ‘well, if you want to go to Indy someday, you’ve got to get good at the high banks. I may never get to do the Indy part but I sure appreciate the chance to race here and some of the historic places we get to race at with the Silver Crown series.”
As coincidence would have it, the last individual to win four USAC races in a row at Winchester, Ryan Newman, was in the field on Friday night, making his first USAC appearance at Winchester since the 2000 season. In the years to come, the 1999 USAC Silver Crown titlist headed south to forge a two-decade-plus career in NASCAR, where he collected 18 career Cup Series wins, including the 2008 Daytona 500.
After earning his record-extending 57th career USAC Silver Crown Honest Abe Roofing Fast Qualifying award, Swanson immediately wrestled control of the field on lap one over the trailing C.J. Leary and Justin Grant. That said, the early race story belonged to veteran Brian Tyler. Over the course of the first six laps, the 11th place starting Tyler picked off one car per lap to race his way into the top-five.
The ever spectacular Tyler experienced several close encounters of the outside wall kind, making full contact with his right rear tire on lap 11, which white walled the sidewall as white paint dust speckled the air. By lap 23, he had scooted by Bobby Santos for fourth and was still rolling. On lap 43, Tyler pulled off what may have been the save of the year as he dirt tracked his ride through turns three and four, barely scraping by while completely sideways. However, Tyler seemingly never lifted and continued on without much hindrance. One lap later, however, Dakoda Armstrong pounced under Tyler for the fourth spot.
Tyler’s run proved to be short lived as, soon thereafter, he began to freefall through the field and was running 11th by the time he dropped off the pace on lap 69. Nonetheless, due to his “if you can’t win, be spectacular” style, Tyler was the recipient of the Inferno Armor Fire Move of the Night.
Up at the front of the field, Swanson remained in total control and began to stretch out his lead on second running Leary. For much of the first half of the race, Leary never strayed more than a few car lengths off Swanson’s rear bumper. But as the race wore on, Swanson wore the field down, increasing his lead to nearly two seconds with roughly 30 laps to go, but this was certainly no time to let up.
“C.J. kept pressure on me the whole time,” Swanson recalled. “Him, Justin (Grant) and the whole field here are really good and they’ll make you pay if you mess up.”
On lap 95 of 100, a mess did find its way into what had been a fairly clean race from the start. After hitting what the team believed to be a slick spot in turn one, 10th running Matt Westfall’s car skidded left and darted right, straight into the outside wall, causing major damage to the right front of the car. Just behind was hard luck, second place running C.J. Leary who attempted to avoid the accident, but as he skidded to miss Westfall, his right rear tire went completely flat, darting him to the bottom of turns one and two and to a stop. Both cars were towed away and unable to restart.
After what had been a relatively stress free environment for Swanson throughout the first 98 laps, the race had suddenly turned into a two-lap dash.
“I was just hoping I could outlast them and I’m out of breath because I feel like I was working hard every lap, especially the last two,” Swanson said. “I’m thankful I didn’t spin out on that last restart and I’m thankful that we had such a good car. Everyone kept trying all day, and even into qualifying, we were making changes and trying to make this number 77 better.
After the restart, Swanson’s quest stayed true to form, as he dashed to the finish line for his 47th career USAC Silver Crown win over Justin Grant, Dakoda Armstrong and Bobby Santos with Ryan Newman rounding out the top-five.
Nathan Byrd flew to his best career Winchester Speedway result. Starting 17th, Byrd edged his way through the field, passing 10 cars to finish a solid seventh to earn Rod End Supply Hard Charger honors.
USAC SILVER CROWN NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP RACE RESULTS: June 27, 2025 – Winchester Speedway – Winchester, Indiana – 1/2-Mile Paved Oval – 34th Rich Vogler Classic
HONEST ABE ROOFING QUALIFYING: 1. Kody Swanson, 77, Doran Binks-14.842; 2. C.J. Leary, 21, Team AZ/Petty/Rossi-15.059; 3. Justin Grant, 91, Hemelgarn-15.162; 4. Kyle Robbins, 7, KR-15.167; 5. Bobby Santos, 98, DJ-15.217; 6. Dakoda Armstrong, 5, C & A-15.257; 7. Ryan Newman, 92, Kazmark-15.260; 8. Matt Westfall, 54, 4 Kings-15.268; 9. Colton Bettis, 126, Pierce-15.273; 10. Logan Seavey, 22, Rice/Abacus-15.293; 11. Brian Tyler, 81, BCR-15.386; 12. Taylor Ferns, 55, Ferns-15.404; 13. Tyler Roahrig, 41, Newman-15.518; 14. Jackson Macenko, 124, Hayes-15.521; 15. Jake Trainor, 6, Klatt-15.562; 16. Kyle Steffens, 8, Steffens-15.891; 17. Nathan Byrd, 40, Meyer-15.911; 18. Gregg Cory, 32, Williams/Cory-17.587; 19. Dave Berkheimer, 31, Berkheimer-NT.
FEATURE: (100 laps, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Kody Swanson (1), 2. Justin Grant (3), 3. Dakoda Armstrong (6), 4. Bobby Santos (5), 5. Ryan Newman (7), 6. Taylor Ferns (12), 7. Nathan Byrd (17), 8. Kyle Steffens (16), 9. C.J. Leary (2), 10. Matt Westfall (8), 11. Gregg Cory (18), 12. Tyler Roahrig (13), 13. Brian Tyler (11), 14. Colton Bettis (9), 15. Jackson Macenko (14), 16. Jake Trainor (15), 17. Kyle Robbins (4), 18. Logan Seavey (10), 19. Dave Berkheimer (19). 37:54.547
FEATURE LAP LEADERS: Laps 1-100 Kody Swanson.
USAC SILVER CROWN NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS: 1-Justin Grant-463, 2-C.J. Leary-374, 3-Matt Westfall-315, 4-Kody Swanson-308, 5-Logan Seavey-271, 6-Kyle Steffens-254, 7-Gregg Cory-246, 8-Dakoda Armstrong-217, 9-Bobby Santos-211, 10-Dave Berkheimer-210.
USAC PARALLAX GROUP NATIONAL PASSING MASTER POINTS: 1-Kale Drake-135, 2-Briggs Danner-63, 3-C.J. Leary-63, 4-Robert Ballou-60, 5-Kyle Cummins-59, 6-Gunnar Setser-57, 7-Justin Grant-56, 8-Chase Stockon-50, 9-Kevin Thomas Jr.-39, 10-Jacob Denney-35.
NEXT USAC SILVER CROWN NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP RACE: July 18-19, 2025 – Salt City Speedway – Hutchinson, Kansas – 1/2-Mile Dirt Oval – Evans Building Salt City 100
CONTINGENCY AWARD WINNERS:
Dirt Draft Practice Fastest Driver: Kody Swanson (14.970)
Honest Abe Roofing Fast Qualifier: Kody Swanson (14.842)
Rod End Supply Hard Charger: Nathan Byrd (17th to 7th)
Inferno Armor Fire Move of the Race: Brian Tyler