Seavey strikes back at Selinsgrove

Logan Seavey takes the checkered flag at Selinsgrove Speedway. (photo by Dan Demarco)

SELINSGROVE, Pa .– After close calls on his previous two trips to Selinsgrove Speedway, Logan Seavey conquered the half-mile dirt track to win Sunday night’s Bill Holland Classic USAC Silver Crown Series race.

Seavey foiled one final effort by finishing second CJ Leary in the first round of a green and white checkered shootout, then pulled away once again for good measure to win his first career USAC Silver Crown race. valued at $ 8,075 in celebration of the 75th anniversary trail.

In his Rice Motorsports / Fatheadz – STIDA.com – Lucas Oil / DRC / Pink Foxco Chevy eyewear, Seavey became the first winner of the Silver Crown race since Jacob Wilson at the Du Quoin (Illinois) fairgrounds in 2019.

So far, a succession of race winners have made their way to victory in the first half of the season with five different drivers scoring victories in the first five rounds to start the season. This is the first time this has happened since 2013.

After a number of close calls ahead of what was his eighth career start in the series, Seavey forced Sunday’s Selinsgrove to stop his turn on the race winners’ ring.

“I feel like we had a great chance to win Williams Grove, but it was taken from us with partial failure,” recalls Seavey. “We have speed right now which is great and it’s cool to win my first silver crown. I love this series. I know I’m new to it, but I’m having so much fun.

After bursting onto the USAC scene as his 2018 National Rookie Midget season champion, Seavey has since expanded into the USAC’s AMSOIL National Sprint Car division, recently claiming three straight victories in the ‘Indiana Sprint Week, and has now translated that success to the Silver Crown race.

In fact, Seavey has now won feature films in all three USAC National Series in 2021, joining Justin Grant in the exclusive club, which Grant had settled in the night before.

But with Silver Crown being his latest foray, and with talented one-on-one Robbie Rice, Ronnie Gardner and Joe Devin at the helm, Seavey feels right at home.

“Growing up, I always wanted to run with dwarves,” Seavey revealed. “As soon as I got to the national series, I realized I was doing well in the midgets, but I feel like it suits me so well. It’s a perfect mix of running hard and saving your tires, trying to find the speed and the balance of the two, and it goes so well. I have a very good racing car and it drives like a dream.

A heartbreaking second place finish for Leary last year at Selinsgrove was replaced by a somewhat more satisfying second place on Sunday, which began with lowering his own personal best USAC Silver Crown at Selinsgrove with a time of 21.185 at Fatheadz Glasses qualifying in his Leary Racing / Leary Construction – Gray Auto – Valvoline / DRC / 1-Way Toyota.

“We’re a lot happier than last year after such a good race,” admitted Leary. “It was another good race tonight; the car was really good. We played with the softer tire and waited too long. I let Logan take too big a lead. I felt like I was knocking him over out there in traffic a bit, but it was just too hard to get over and on that reboot I saw Chris (Windom), and right before the yellow, he kept me at the bottom of two. I was like ‘dude, maybe I could make this work.’ I just tried to run hard enough to keep Jake (Swanson) behind me. I was going to do this to Logan, but he was so good there early on and I let him stray too far. These races are so hard to win, and a lot of strategy is needed. Ours just didn’t play tonight.

Jake Swanson was third.

“We were really good,” Swanson said. “I just feel like there are a few things I could have done better there to get along with CJ. In the end, I was just hoping that I could keep up with them and maybe be able to capitalize on something. These guys are really good and it’s rare for them to make mistakes, but when they do it’s always hard to capitalize on. I’m really happy, really excited about our result, our best finish.

To see the full results, go to the next page.