PORT ROYAL, Pa. — They say an individual receives just one opportunity to make a first impression.
If that’s truly the case, then Logan Seavey’s introduction to Pennsylvania’s Port Royal Speedway is a match made straight out of a storybook.
Making his first appearance at the half-mile track, Seavey won the USAC sprint car feature early in the night and concluded his evening by winning the first USAC Silver Crown race ever run at the track.
Seavey led on two different occasions and used a late-race restart with two laps remaining of the 50-lapper to work his way back by Matt Westfall just a half-lap from the finish line while banging the outside guardrail for the majority of the distance to propel him forward off the turns and down the straightaways.
Ironically, it was Seavey himself who may have inadvertently saved his own race. With two laps remaining and trailing Westfall by a car length, Seavey clocked the turn two guardrail three different times, which sheared off his own right rear wheel cover.
With Seavey’s wheel cover sitting right smack dab in the middle of the highline groove near the outside rail in turn two, a debris caution was called, which set up a two-lap dash between Westfall and Seavey.
Westfall led the initial lap following the lap 49 restart by running through the middle of the race track while Seavey committed himself to banging off the outside fence up top. Westfall stayed steady and led Seavey by a single car length as the two crossed under Warren Alston’s white flag.
Seavey clipped the turn-two wall not once, but twice and possibly three times as he vaulted himself ahead of Westfall midway down the back straightaway. Once Seavey’s rear bumper cleared Westfall’s front bumper, Seavey changed course and headed to the bottom to steal away Westfall’s low line. Both couldn’t quite hold the grip on the bottom in turn three, and both simultaneously drifted up the track surface in synchronicity. Exiting turn four for the final time, Seavey could finally breathe a sense of relief with a mere two car length gap separating each other at the checkered flag.
The third win of Seavey’s Silver Crown career was his most impressive yet as he utilized every ounce of grit he could muster out of his car and of himself to earn the $8,000 winner’s share – minus $100 for the dislodged wheel cover per USAC rules.
Seavey’s sweep of the two features he ran on Saturday at Port Royal made him the first driver to capture main event wins in the USAC Silver Crown and USAC National Sprint Car divisions on the same day since Chris Windom in 2013.
“I knew this was going to be a place I was going to fall in love with,” Seavey noted while basking in the afterglow of victory beside his STIDA.com – Lucas Oil – Legacy Motorsports/DRC/Pink Foxco Chevy. “I have such a good race car and we really just based it off how we race at Eldora and these cars are really good there. I knew we were going to be good but, actually, I struggled really bad in the beginning of the race, and I was complaining to my crew chief Ronnie (Gardner) under the yellow with 20 to go when I said that I can’t run the middle or the bottom like these guys, so I’m just going to free myself up a little bit and commit to the wall, and that’s what I did.”
It was so close for Matt Westfall as the two-decade veteran of USAC Silver Crown racing came within a half-lap of winning his first career series feature after leading a race-high 30 laps in his Westfall Motorsports/Lynn Cook – Bordner Welding – Lake City Bowl – Ray Marshall Motorsports/Maxim/J & D Chevy. His second-place result ties his best career series result after similar runner-up finishes at Ohio’s Eldora Speedway in 2013 and again in 2021.
It’s now two starts and two podium finishes for Brady Baconduring the 2022 USAC Silver Crown season thus far in his Five Three Motorsports/Fatheadz Eyewear – Smith Titanium – Indy Powdercoat/Maxim/Kistler Chevy.
Keyword: Seavey Makes Winning Impression