By Richie Murray
Speedway, Indiana (March 25, 2026)………Kevin Thomas Jr. will run it back with 4 Kings Racing for his second full season with the team during the 2026 USAC NOS Energy Drink Midget National Championship campaign.
Thomas (Cullman, Alabama) enters the new year coming off his strongest run with the series in a decade. In 2025, he accumulated 10 top-fives, 19 top-tens and a single fast qualifying time in 23 series starts.
In 2026, Thomas will drive the team’s No. 14 machine, sporting a special partnership with the Purple Heart Foundation, whose mission is to enhance the quality of life of Purple Heart recipients and other honorably discharged veterans and their families through critical assistance grants, providing resources related to TBI, PTS, mental health, and suicide prevention, academic scholarships and service dogs.
For Thomas and team owner Rex Turner, the partnership is especially close to them on a personal level.
“Rex’s grandfather was a recipient of the Purple Heart and went to Vietnam and my grandfather did as well,” Thomas said. “So, that’s pretty cool to be able to represent them and for what they stand for. I’m excited for the year and being able to have that on the side of the car. When you go up to the stands or into the pits after the races, you’ll have some people come up who are veterans of war and it’s just always cool to listen to them. They are the ones that you don’t want to forget about.”
In 2025, Thomas equaled a career best finish in the USAC National Midget points by taking third in the standings a full decade after also finishing third in 2015. Overall, he garnered four second place finishes in his first full-time season with 4 Kings and accrued the most heat race victories of the season as well, amassing eight.
They were front runners all season long in their first foray, and began the 2026 calendar with an impressive 18th to 2nd charge on the final night of the Chili Bowl Nationals. Now, they intend to keep it rolling into the upcoming season where they aim to get 4 Kings its first ever USAC victory in their LynK/Stanton SR-11x combo.
“Rex Turner and Fred Edwards, they’re the guys behind everything that we do,” Thomas stated. “There’s Matt (Westfall), Jakeb Boxell, Matt’s dad (Phil), and they have a great team over there. When I got the call to drive it, they wanted to build it and they wanted to do some things. All the people that are involved with it on the mechanical side, they make it go around pretty nice.”
Thomas has long been a competitor who’s faced off against Westfall for much of the past 15 years or so. Together, they got the chance to work alongside each other and clicked successfully.
“I’ve raced against Matt forever, it seems like, ever since I first started and him and I work great together,” Thomas explained. “I didn’t know how that was going to be at first. But now, since working side-by-side with him, he’s been great.”
Thomas will also have a teammate to race alongside on the full USAC National Midget tour, that being up-and-comer Jakeb Boxell.
“He started last year and ran some select shows,” Thomas said. “He’s really come into his own. He gives me crap all the time because he’s beat me a couple of times. So, he’s got a tally mark. But it’s a good team over there. They really do a good job of putting really good pieces on the racetrack and giving us what we need to go fast. That’s the name of the game. I talk to Rex quite a bit and that’s just what we want. We want to go as fast as possible, and he’s not scared to put those pieces underneath us.”
Thomas will start off his USAC NOS Energy Drink Midget National Championship season in 2026 beginning with back-to-back nights at Indiana’s Kokomo Speedway for the Kokomo Grand Prix on April 24-25.
For more information on the Purple Heart Foundation, please visit https://purpleheartfoundation.org/.