We had a little fun on a Thursday night at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park. Thanks to the entire Bertrand team for the fast car, David Sink for the photo, and Jo for cooking up some celebratory tacos!
Kody was quickest in qualifying and finished second in the heat race. The invert was an eight for the feature, and he was able to pull off the win!
Bertrand Motorsports | Mission Foods | #2Fast2Tasty | Stanton Racing Engines | Competition Suspension Inc. | Allstar Performance | Eibach | FK Rod Ends | Diversified Machine, Inc. / DMI / BullDog Rears | Saldana Racing Products | The Joie of Seating | Simpson Race Products | Pavement Pounders
June 25, 2024 – Holly, Michigan – Must See Racing Sprint Series Presented by Perfit-Parts officials confirmed today that pavement sprint car guru Kody Swanson is one of the first entries for the July 5 event at Birch Run Speedway in Birch Run, Michigan. The single day event will also feature the Maxima Racing Oils Midwest Lights Series.
It will be the first time Swanson has competed in a winged asphalt sprint car since 2015.It is no surprise Swanson is set to return to winged asphalt sprint car competition as it is quickly becoming very popular, and big paydays are becoming regular occurrences for this sector of the sport.
Swanson is no stranger to MSR competition. In fact, he has one career victory with the series, but it wasn’t in winged competition. Swanson was victorious in the lone MSR non-winged event held at Indianapolis Raceway Park during the 2020 Indy Summer Nationals. Swanson’s last appearance in MSR winged competition occurred on May 23, 2012, at Anderson (IN) Speedway where he was runner-up to winner Jason Blonde.
Swanson will be aboard the potent Dick Myers owned #50m nicknamed the ‘Mopar Missile’. The Myers owned car is in the midst of a two-race podium finish. Canadian Aaron Willison found victory with the car this past Saturday at Owosso Speedway and was runner-up at Lancaster, New York June1 with the car.
“I had a couple conversations with Dick Myers in the spring about possibly running his car a time or two this summer during casual conversations. He knew I had an interest in doing a few winged shows this year. It was a matter of everything fitting together so we could come out and have some fun together this summer.
“He was the first guy who hired me to drive his car that I wasn’t close with already. I think he was the first guy to fire me too “laughs Swanson. “It’s all part of racing and I’m fortunate enough to have had a long career.”
“I think the last time I ran a winged pavement car was at Toledo in June of 2015, so it’s been a while” explained Swanson. “We blew up running second for Tom Brewer” Swanson remembers. “We qualified well and came from sixth to second pretty quickly. We ended up losing the motor and did a half spin in front of Aaron Pierce. We collected him and that was the last of that.”
Swanson does have one career winged pavement victory with the now defunct Hoosier Outlaw Sprint Series (HOSS) at Jones, Michigan in 2013 driving for Brewer. He’s hoping his most recent start will have the success he found at Jones, Michigan in 2013.
“At that point in time, I had a lot of opportunities with Tom Brewer to run some winged stuff. For one reason or another we always had tough luck or didn’t get the finish we wanted. But at that time, I was trying not to just be a pavement guy. In 2014 I was still chasing that first USAC Silver Crown title”.
“Instead of running so many winged races I ended up trying to run more dirt sprint car races. It really helped me with what I was missing to be a championship USAC Silver Crown contender. For a few years the schedule was seventy percent dirt. That’s why it’s been so long since I’ve really done any winged stuff. I have a lot of interest in winged stuff now, knowing that the two Open Wheel Showdown events are coming up at the end of the year.”
“I’m excited about it. I certainly haven’t done a lot of it, or a lot of it lately. I know there is an opportunity for me to get comfortable, but I need to improve. I’m excited to get that part started. If more opportunities like this come up to run that type of car, and you can do it more often, you’re only gonna get better at it. I’m excited to work with Dick again, be competitive, and tackle Must See Racing competition. Hopefully I can get caught up quickly and we can have a good day at Birch Run” finished Swanson.
For more info on Must See Racing and the July 5 Birch Run Speedway event please visit http://www.mustseeracing.com
Attached Photo Credit: David Sink Photo
OREGON, Wis., June 23 — Doran Binks Racing and driver Kody Swanson still lead the entrant and driver point standings in the USAC Silver Crown division following Friday night’s Bytec Dairyland 100 at Madison International Speedway, but their top rivals have drawn closer after a mechanical problem resulted in an 11th-place finish for the No. 77, which is sponsored by Mission Foods, Glenn Farms, and Wilke Orthodontics.
Earlier in the evening Swanson won the pole for the 100-lap race with a time of 17.062 seconds, extending his record as the driver with the most USAC Silver Crown poles in history to 51. C.J. Leary, Bobby Santos III, Dakoda Armstrong and Taylor Ferns rounded out the top five in qualifying.
Swanson led all 300 laps of the three previous pavement USAC Silver Crown races this year and he’s won this race three times (2018, 2019 and 2023).
But on Friday Leary was able to get around him on the outside going into Turn 1 of the half-mile paved oval on the first lap, and then Santos edged under him in the same spot on lap two to relegate him to third.
That set up one of the best battle of the evening, as Swanson hounded Santos for second while Ferns tried to get third away from Swanson as the trio played a high-speed game of cat and mouse.
Swanson eventually dropped to fourth but his drive came to an end when he suddenly slowed in Turn 3 to bring out the first of two cautions on lap 61 due to a mechanical issue that caused the No. 77 to lose fuel. He was pushed to the pits by a four-wheeler and the Doran Binks crew made quick repairs. Swanson was able to return to the rear of the field and run for about 10 more laps, and his official finishing position was 11th.
He wasn’t the only one who had their night come to an end prematurely. Ferns brought out the event’s only other yellow while running third working lap 75 when she stopped at about the same place Swanson had. Her car’s issue was a broken U-joint, and she ended up right behind Swanson in the final rundown, in 12th place.
And after leading from the start, Leary also ran into calamity in the same spot on lap 89, as he got a flat tire and had contact with Armstrong. He pitted for a new tire but he ended up ninth.
That gave the point to Armstrong, who went on to post his first USAC Silver Crown victory. Santos, Grant, rookie Trey Osborne and defending series champion Seavey rounded out the top five.
PORT ROYAL, Pa., June 17 — Thanks to a solid top-five finish in Saturday night’s USAC Silver Crown race at Port Royal Speedway, Kody Swanson and Doran Binks Racing remain in the lead in the series’ driver and entrant point standings with a third of the season complete.
Driving Doran Binks Racing’s dirt Silver Crown car, which is a Maxim chassis powered by a Hampshire Chevrolet engine, Swanson qualified third for the 50-lap race for sponsors that include Mission Foods, Glenn Farms, and Wilke Orthodontics. He was only 0.127 of a second off the new track record of 19.816 seconds that Brady Bacon set to better the mark Mitchel Moles established here last year and earn the pole. Daison Pursley, who ended up winning the race on the last lap, qualified second.
Logan Seavey, who won the two previous USAC Silver Crown races on Port Royal’s half-mile dirt oval, and Justin Grant managed to pass Swanson on the first lap before the first of two caution flags waved with one lap down for C.J. Leary and Nathan Moore, who crashed low in Turn 4.
For most of the race Swanson had his hands full defending his position from Matt Westfall, who hounded him almost constantly. Swanson tried both the high and the low grooves to spurt away from Westfall, who preferred the low groove.
Westfall made a pass stick working lap 13 to push Swanson, a native of Kingsburg, Calif., who now lives in Indianapolis, to sixth. However, seconds later Seavey, who had been third behind Bacon and Pursley, went into the infield with a mechanical issue that caused his car to lose fuel. After a stop in the work area he reported to the tail and went on to finish tenth, but his issue put Swanson back in fifth place for the restart. Caution flag laps didn’t count on Saturday.
Moles threatened to pass Swanson around lap 18, but Swanson hung tough in fifth place. At the halfway point he was 1.134 seconds behind Westfall and 1.174 ahead of Moles, and three laps later he set his fastest lap of the race.
Grant passed Bacon for the lead on lap 30 in Turn 1 and two laps later Swanson got by Westfall for fourth place. Westfall stuck to him like glue, however, and he passed Swanson on lap 40 to push Swanson, who is the winningest driver in series history, back to fifth.
Pursley passed Bacon for second on lap 33 and then he drove around the outside of Grant in Turn 4 on the last lap for his first career USAC Silver Crown victory. Grant finished second and Bacon placed third for the third year in a row. Westfall was fourth and Swanson finished fifth for the second year in a row.
Chase Dietz passed Moles for sixth on lap 49. Alex Bright, Briggs Danner, and Seavey rounded out the top 10.
The time of the race was 28:53.852, so Pursley broke Seavey’s 50-lap USAC Silver Crown record of 29.32.10 for this track.
“Last year we were loose here and this time we were too tight,” Swanson said afterwards. “I need to get better at helping to figure out how to be more in the middle next year set-up wise. The drivers and teams in this series are so good. It’s hard just trying to figure out the best set-up and how the track will change as the race progresses.
“But I’m grateful for all the work the Doran Binks guys do to keep us in the hunt and give us a chance,” he added. “And we’re all grateful for the support of our sponsors like Mission Foods, Glenn Farms, and Wilke Orthodontics.
“I moved around and tried all the lines trying to find out where we could be faster,” he added. “Sometimes when I was high on the cushion in Turn 3, I only had one wheel on the ground, but then the others came back down so that was all good. We’ll just try again another day.”
Paul Arch photo.
By: Richie Murray – USAC Media
Brownsburg, Indiana (May 25, 2024)………One year after dominating the first 116 laps of the Hoosier Hundred, Kody Swanson only had to focus on a mere 100 circuits around Brownsburg, Indiana’s Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park on Saturday morning.
In fact, he seemingly didn’t have to worry about a thing throughout the entire distance as he led from start to finish to score his fifth career Hoosier Hundred victory aboard his Doran-Binks Racing/Mission Foods – Wilke Orthodontics – Glenn Farms/Beast/Lanci Ford.
Swanson’s four previous Hoosier Hundred wins in 2014-15-16-18 all came on the dirt at the now-shuttered Indiana State Fairgrounds mile, but this time around, the win came on the pavement of IRP where it has been held in each of the past two seasons.
“It’s great to have the Hoosier Hundred continue,” Swanson said in praise of the race that has been held regularly since 1953. “I loved it at the Indiana State Fairgrounds, but it’s so great that (IRP promoter) Kasey Coler and his team put it on, and it pays more now for us than it ever did before. That means a lot to the racers, and I appreciate him sticking his neck out on that.”
For the victory, Swanson pocketed a cool $26,000 between his victory and pole position, the richest-paying USAC Silver Crown event of the 2024 season and among the most lucrative in series history. In the process, he also became the new series point leader, by one point, over C.J. Leary as Swanson pursues an unprecedented eighth Silver Crown championship.
Swanson’s handful of Hoosier Hundred triumphs ranks second all-time behind only A.J. Foyt, who won six in his illustrious career. Swanson’s 43rd career USAC Silver Crown victory was also his eighth with the series at IRP’s .686-mile paved oval, tying his brother, Tanner Swanson, for number one all-time.
“However it ends, if it works out like this, you can’t be picky,” Swanson said. “I haven’t won a points race here in three years. My brother has been racking them up and Bobby (Santos) too. I’m just glad to get these guys to victory lane whenever we can. They do such a great job on this car.”
On Friday afternoon, Swanson (Kingsburg, Calif.) collected his record-extending 50th career pole position. Torrential rain washed away the planned 146-lap, 100-mile feature event, postponing it to a 10:49am local start on Saturday with a new shortened distance of 100 laps, 68.6 miles, which suited Swanson just fine.
Swanson maintained a one second margin lead throughout the first 40 laps when the only accident of the day occurred. On lap 41, Kaylee Bryson (13th) suddenly dropped off the pace on the back straightaway with an engine issue. In trying to avoid contact just behind her, Trey Burke (15th) veered left and ramped over the left rear tire of Jerry Coons Jr. (14th). Burke briefly became airborne before landing on all four wheels and sliding into the path of Bryson, sending both Burke and Bryson into the outside turn three wall. Both drivers walked away, but their machines suffered significant damage.
When the race resumed on the 50th lap, second running Tyler Roahrig’s car experienced a failure to launch, costing him three positions as he dropped back to fifth while Logan Seavey, who stood fourth in line, also suffered an unfortunate fate as he got stuck behind Roahrig and fell back to sixth. Santos, Dakoda Armstrong and Taylor Ferns all took advantage of the situation as they slotted into second, third and fourth, respectively. Within five laps, however, Roahrig had roared past them all to regain the runner-up spot.
Up front, Swanson continued to turn up the wick even further as he extended his dominance to three, four and five seconds over Roahrig. Yet, with five laps remaining, Swanson’s lead on the field soared as Roahrig abruptly dropped off the pace with a fuel issue. Roahrig soldiered on around the bottom line during the final laps, but ultimately, exited to the pits on the white flag lap, dropping him to a highly disappointing 12th in the final running order.
Swanson put the finishing touches on yet another masterpiece, defeating the field by a whopping 17.850 second margin over Logan Seavey, C.J. Leary, Russ Gamester and Bobby Santos. Swanson added 100 more laps led to his Hoosier Hundred resume, moving him from fourth to second on the all-time list. Swanson’s total of 378 laps led in the event, all of which have been guided by his wife/spotter, Jordan Swanson, now trails only A.J. Foyt’s 592.
“She does a great job just keeping me in the loop as to what’s happening,” Swanson said. “Today, this place was tricky. It was hot and greasy, and we really haven’t run a race like this since 2021 when we did this during the day. I hate that Tyler (Roahrig) had misfortune there because I know he was coming on really strong. There are a lot of really great teams and drivers that are part of this series and anytime you can get a win, it’s special.”
Logan Seavey (Sutter, Calif.) worked his way back up from sixth after the mid-race restart to score second at the finish line in his Rice Motorsports-Abacus Racing/DiaEdge Mitsubishi Materials – STIDA – Legacy 40/Beast/Felker Chevy, equaling his best result on the pavement with the USAC Silver Crown series. In three career Hoosier Hundred starts, the 2023 series champion has finished third, second and second.
C.J. Leary’s weekend started in tumultuous fashion with the engine in his regular Klatt Enterprises No. 6 giving fits to the team. In stepped driver/owner Bryan Gossel, who graciously offered to step out of the car and offer Leary the ride in his BG Automotive – BG Products – Simpson Race Products/Beast/Parker Chevy. Leary (Greenfield, Ind.) made the best of the situation by achieving the biggest charge at the track in two decades. As it turned out, Leary’s 22nd to 3rd run on Saturday was the biggest advancement by a USAC Silver Crown driver at IRP since Chet Fillip went 26th to 6th in 2004. For his efforts, Leary earned a $1,000 hard charger bonus.
In fact, several $1,000 bonuses and incentives were added to the Hoosier Hundred festivities. Along with Swanson’s pole and Leary’s hard charger, sixth place finisher Dakoda Armstrong was rewarded as the Rookie of the Race. Bobby Santos’ DJ Racing crew was voted as the “best appearing.” Finally, Brent Yarnal made the long haul to central Indiana from his Phoenix, Arizona home, around 1700 miles away, which earned him the “Longest Tow” award.
Russ Gamester (Peru, Ind.) experienced a substantially significant race on two different fronts aboard his Gamester Racing/Gamester’s Green Gable Village – Gamester Racing Products/Eagle/Kercher Chevy. His 29th career Hoosier Hundred start on Saturday tied him with Johnny Parsons for number one on the all-time list. Furthermore, his fourth-place run was his best USAC Silver Crown finish of any kind since 2012 at the Terre Haute Action Track. Even better, it's his best Silver Crown result on pavement since a second-place finish at IRP 22 years ago in 2002.
SUNDAY SWEEP: SWANSON SCORES 3RD STRAIGHT VOGLER CLASSIC AT WINCHESTER
By: Richie Murray – USAC Media
Winchester, Indiana (May 5, 2024)………In his younger days, Kody Swanson was so inspired by the path Ryan Newman took on his way to racing stardom, that in some respects, Kody followed in his footsteps, and that even extended to his education off the racetrack.
Now firmly entrenched as the most successful USAC Silver Crown competitor of all-time, Swanson (Kingsburg, Calif.) has followed in Newman’s path on the racetrack as well, and like Newman, has become a dominator of the hallowed 37-degree banks of Indiana’s Winchester Speedway.
On Sunday afternoon, Swanson swept the entire program during the 33rd running of the Rich Vogler Classic, establishing the fastest time in practice, then capturing the pole in qualifying before leading all 100 laps around the half-mile paved oval in his Doran-Binks Racing/Mission Foods – Wilke Orthodontics – Glenn Farms/Beast/Lanci Ford en route to his third consecutive Winchester USAC Silver Crown victory after scoring the previous two editions in 2022 and 2023.
That brings in the connection with Newman who, before Swanson on Sunday, was the most recent driver to score three-straight USAC wins at Winchester, achieving the feat entirely within the 1999 season by collecting a sprint car win followed by two additional triumphs in the midgets. In 2000, Newman also swept both the sprint car and midget portion of the Vogler Classic at Winchester, which was sanctioned by NAMARS during that particular year.
“That’s really special because I remember how good Ryan was and how strong he was here,” Swanson said. “When I was growing up and getting into racing, I took a year of mechanical engineering because Ryan Newman did. He made his career by winning big races. He won on the high banks; he had a degree and he understood how to communicate with crew chiefs. I wanted to try and do that to see if I could make it very far. I sure am thankful that I have made it all the way to USAC, especially the Silver Crown division.”
Swanson’s fifth career Vogler Classic triumph (2016-19-22-23-24) spans across two venues – Indianapolis Raceway Park and Winchester – and now has him just one shy of Tracy Hines’ all-time win record of six in the event, which was set between 1996 and 2013. Furthermore, Swanson has jetted out to victories in the opening two races of the 2024 USAC Silver Crown season following his win in April’s opener at Ohio’s Toledo Speedway. It’s the third occasion in which he’s won the opening two rounds of the series (2015-19-24), and the previous two resulted in series championships.
Gridded alongside first time Silver Crown front row starter Dakoda Armstrong, Swanson gained the upper hand right from the start, establishing a healthy full second lead before the first stoppage on lap 16 as 12th running Travis Welpott made heavy contact against the outside wall in turns three and four before grinding to a halt with extensive damage on the right front of his familiar orange and white machine. Welpott, a middle school teacher and wrestling coach by day, walked away from the incident.
Throughout the first half of the contest, Armstrong kept Swanson relatively in check as he held steady in the second spot, far and away his best performance thus far with the series. In the back of Swanson’s mind was the notion that he wasn’t yet seeing the full scope of what his competition had to offer, and that they might be saving their equipment for a final push in the latter stages.
“These races are hard because not everybody shows their hand all the time,” Swanson explained. “Part of that is trying to figure out where you really stand. Bobby Santos comes through the field and he’s so good at it. C.J. came with him and Dakoda was really strong too. There are a bunch of good cars in this series, so you’re never really know until the end.”
One of those drivers who may have had something for him down the stretch was Armstrong. However, on lap 58, shortly after the yellow was displayed for the stalled car of 13th running Kyle Steffens, heartbreak befell Armstrong who was summoned to the pits by his fellow competitors and race officials who were signaling to him that his left rear wheel nut had come off. Remarkably, the wheel stayed on, and he was able to drive it back to the pits. But after surrendering the second spot, he returned to finish a disappointing 14th.
With Armstrong’s absence, Santos moved up to second while C.J. Leary slotted into third. Meanwhile, Swanson dropped the hammer and pulled out to a 2.865 second lead over Santos, and soon enough, that fact was carved into stone. In the end, Swanson merely had to navigate smoothly under and around a smidge of lapped traffic, which proved to be of no resistance as Swanson crossed under chief starter Jake Croxton’s checkered flag 5.554 seconds ahead of the field.
Bobby Santos took second in the final running order ahead of C.J. Leary while 2021 Vogler Classic winner Justin Grant made one last ditch effort around the outside of Taylor Ferns off the final turn to swipe the fourth spot just in the nick of time while Ferns rounded out the top-five.
As for Swanson, winning the Vogler Classic is always special, and this one in particular was special in its own way.
“The Rich Vogler Classic sure means an awful lot to me,” Swanson stated. “It means even more if you can see the FloRacing documentary and see all the little details about him. I hate that Eleanor (Rich Vogler’s mother) couldn’t be here but I’m glad to know she’s checking in on us. Plus, my grandfather turned 88 on Friday and he’s always been a good luck charm for me on his birthday weekend. It's a special weekend.”
In three of his four career USAC Silver Crown starts at Winchester, Bobby Santos (Franklin, Mass.) has stood on the podium as one of the top-three finishers. A third in 2021 was followed by a second in 2023 and yet another second on Sunday in his DJ Racing/Brown & Miller Racing Solutions – Simpson Race Products/Beast/Speedway Chevy.
“We’ve just got to get our car a little bit better here,” Santos noted. “We’re close but we’ve just got to keep working on it. C.J. raced me clean there and they were probably a little better than we were at the end, and I was probably holding them up a little bit.”
After consecutive fourth place finishes in his first two Winchester Silver Crown starts in 2022-23, C.J. Leary (Greenfield, Ind.) set a new benchmark on Sunday with a third-place result in his Klatt Enterprises/Wilwood Disc Brakes – Brown & Miller Racing Solutions – Penske – Hoosier Tire/Beast/Ford. It’s a fine start to his Silver Crown season as he recorded his second consecutive third-place result after finishing in the same spot at Toledo two weeks earlier.
“I had a spirited battle there with Bobby and I think we might’ve been a little bit better, but I just got sloppy at the end,” Leary admitted. “We were struggling on the restart and had a little bit of a stumble. It took me three or four laps to run him back down and get our tires hot. I was just going for it there at the end but didn’t get it done.”
Each successive Silver Crown start seemingly results in another record extending performance. Sunday marked his 49th career pole position with the series while his victory was his 42nd, both head and shoulders above the fray in the record books.
By: Richie Murray – USAC Media
Toledo, Ohio (April 20, 2024)………Four months ago, Kody Swanson saw his season and the future of his racing career hang in the balance.
A Christmas morning accident at his parents’ home resulted in a severely broken left foot. Multiple surgeries later, the Kingsburg, Calif. native was affixed with a walking boot and a pair of crutches. Throughout the arduous rehabilitation process, Swanson longed for the day that he could return to the USAC Silver Crown National Championship.
On Saturday afternoon at Ohio’s Toledo Speedway, that long awaited day had finally arrived.
Just six days following a runner-up finish with the 500 Sprint Tour in his first race back, Swanson one-upped himself during the Hemelgarn Racing/Super Fitness Rollie Beale Classic Presented by Marco’s Pizza. He led off by taking the top time in practice, then laid down the fastest lap in qualifying and concluded with a masterpiece driving performance in which he led all 100 laps in succession.
Swanson’s 41 career Silver Crown victories are far and away above anyone else who’s ever handled a champ car. However, without question, this win had an even more significant sense of accomplishment, perhaps more than any of the previous 40 he’s earned during his illustrious career.
“I don’t want to keep talking about it, but I don’t want it to get lost on how important it is to me,” Swanson stated. “My foot was wrecked. But I had so many people who were a part of it and helped me recover – Dr. Tim Weber for patching me back together and everybody who’s been a part of it. That’s carried me through this winter to race like I did today and to have a chance to get back in a car. God blessed me and I’m extremely grateful.”
Swanson’s record shattering afternoon at the 1/2-mile paved oval came aboard his Doran-Binks Racing/Mission Foods – Wilke Orthodontics – Glenn Farms/Beast/Lanci Ford. When the question of “who’ll stop the reign” is posed regarding Swanson’s prowess at Toledo, as it turns out, nobody has been able to since 2017.
His eighth overall Silver Crown victory at Toledo (2011-15-18-19-21-22-23-24), tied him for the all-time record in terms of the most victories by any driver at a single track. He’s now equaled with Jack Hewitt and his eight wins at Eldora Speedway along with that of his younger brother, Tanner Swanson, who scored eight at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park.
Furthermore, Kody’s sixth consecutive Silver Crown triumph at Toledo produced an all-time USAC record for the most consecutive wins at one single track. The previous standard had been held by, not surprisingly, himself, with five-in-a-row at Salem Speedway between 2016-20. Dave Steele also won five-straight at Phoenix International Raceway from 2002-06, a dominant stretch that has a highly personal significance to him.
“It’s incredibly special because Dave Steele had five and he dominated Phoenix and the Copper World,” Swanson recalled. “That was the season opener for many years, and it was the first Silver Crown race I ever got to see in person. I was just a fan, and when he won at Phoenix, that was one of those five.”
Even more, Swanson’s fifth career USAC Silver Crown season opening win also tied him for the all-time lead alongside Steele.
What’s interesting is that Swanson has achieved his six-race Toledo winning streak with three different teams over that time span: DePalma Motorsports (2018), Nolen Racing (2019) and Doran-Binks Racing (2021-22-23-24).
Swanson, the only driver to have started all 11 Silver Crown events at Toledo, has now led 778 out of the 1200 laps ever run during the past 11 editions, which puts it at an astonishing clip of 64.8 percent.
On a chilly day in which temperatures hovered around the 50-degree mark at its peak, Swanson had the field covered, but not in a blanket. His qualifying lap at an average speed of 120.676 mph was the fastest a Silver Crown car had run at Toledo in five years. Winter, Spring, Summer or Fall, Swanson’s Toledo stranglehold seemingly never loosens its grip. Nonetheless, Swanson admitted that the cool temps bring out the best in him.
“I just feel like I get along with Toledo Speedway better when it’s cold,” Swanson explained. “I feel like, sometimes, I struggle here in August, and last year, I was behind. I felt like C.J. (Leary) had us but he had some misfortune on his part which allowed us to get back into it. To have a streak like this, you’re going to have to have a little good luck.”
Only one caution slowed the proceedings, that being a lap 32 spin off turn four by Rookie Jackson Macenko who was making his Silver Crown debut on this day. He ran as high as seventh and was running 12th at the time of the incident which involved no contact.
Swanson’s winning margin was 3.441 seconds with C.J. Leary taking second. Tyler Roahrig finished third while Justin Grant took fourth and Bobby Santos rounded out the top-five.
For the second straight season, C.J. Leary (Greenfield, Ind.) finished as the runner-up to Swanson at the finish line. With that said, this one came in a much more pleasant experience following last year’s disappointment when he led a race-high 77 laps before a tire bleeder issue dropped him to second near the end of the race. All in all, it was a solid start to the campaign for Leary and his Klatt Enterprises/Wilwood Disc Brakes – Brown & Miller Racing Solutions – Penske – Hoosier Tire/Beast/Ford.
“Second is definitely a lot easier to take this year than it was last year,” Leary admitted. “I felt like we just weren’t as good as Kody. On short run speed, we were pretty good, but we were pretty snug all day. We kept losing stagger and I don’t know if it was the cold temperatures or what. On a 10 or 12-lap run, I felt like we could keep pace with Kody, but after that, we would get tight. All in all, it was a good day. I’m not a pavement guy, but it’s a lot of fun coming out and racing with these guys.”
Tyler Roahrig (Plymouth, Ind.), a veteran of only six previous Silver Crown starts, entered this season with a brand-new team making its first ever series appearance on Saturday at Toledo. In the end, they couldn’t have asked for a much better start to their racing partnership. Roahrig began his race from the outside of the front row, then fell back to fourth by the opening lap before getting by Grant just five laps before midway to swipe the final spot on the podium in his Mike Newman/Firstline Systems, Inc. – Newman Racing – Drywall Distributors/Beast/Jackson Chevy. In seven career Silver Crown starts, Roahrig has now finished third or better in five of them.
“I could catch (Leary), but then he’d get away. I just didn’t have quite enough to pass him,” Roahrig acknowledged. “It was a great first outing for our 41 team. Mike Newman made this all possible for me. I didn’t really have a Silver Crown ride after last year. I’ve just got to thank everyone that’s a part of this team. It sure was a battle getting this thing done this week.”
Kaylee Bryson (Muskogee, Okla.) started 18th and advanced through the field to an 11th place finish, earning herself hard charger honors for the day, which came after her Sam Pierce owned team changed a right rear tire following qualifying.
By: Linda Mansfield, Restart Communications
ANDERSON, Ind., April 15 —Doran Binks Racing and driver Kody Swanson got the 2024 season off to a great start Sunday afternoon when Swanson was the fastest qualifier in the Mission Foods/Glenn Farms No. 77, led a third of the 100-lap Glen Niebel Classic, and finished a solid second in the 500 Sprint Car Tour season opener at Anderson Speedway.
After earning the pole when the inversion was a one, Swanson led the first 34 laps as the 21-car field sped around the quarter-mile paved oval. Dakoda Armstrong used lapped traffic to help him vault from third to first in Turn 2 on lap 35, and he went on to win the race with Swanson in hot pursuit. The winner’s cousin, Caleb Armstrong, placed third followed by the defending race winner, Kyle O’Gara, and Taylor Ferns.
It was the second year in a row that Swanson was the fastest qualifier for this particular event, which was its 24th edition. After running third and first in the two practice sessions Sunday afternoon, he topped the field in qualifying with a time of 11.274 seconds with the No. 77, which is powered by a Dan Binks-prepared Chevrolet V8 engine. Defending series champion Tyler Roahrig qualified second followed by Dakoda and Caleb Armstrong and Bobby Santos III.
Roahrig pressured Swanson incessantly right from the start, with Dakoda Armstrong right behind him. The top three broke away from the pack slightly in the early going, but they had their hands full with lapped traffic quickly.
Dakoda Armstrong used double-wide lapped traffic to help him pass both Swanson and Roahrig on lap 35, and Swanson chased him the rest of the way in pursuit of his third victory in this particular race, as he won it in 2018 and 2021.
There were only two cautions, and yellow-flag laps didn’t count. The first yellow flew with 67 laps down when Billy Wease spun low on the frontstretch while running seventh. That allowed Swanson to close up behind Dakoda Armstrong for the restart, but Armstrong was able to spurt away when the green waved again.
Roahrig experienced a mechanical issue shortly thereafter and fell back to sixth before retiring with 71 laps complete, which moved Caleb Armstrong into third. On the next lap the second and final yellow waved with 72 laps down when Shane Butler spun in Turn 4 while running tenth.
Dakoda Armstrong set the fastest lap of the race with a 11.525 on lap three. Roahrig was second in that category with a 11.538 on the same lap, and Swanson was third with a 11.541 on lap five.
The next 500 Sprint Car Tour race is its premier event, the 76th Little 500 at Anderson on Saturday, May 25, but before that the Doran Binks crew will turn its attention to the USAC Silver Crown season opener this coming Saturday, April 20, at Toledo (Ohio) Speedway. Last year Swanson won an unprecedented fifth straight USAC Silver Crown race at Toledo Speedway and his seventh there in all. The Kingsburg, Calif., native who now lives in Indianapolis also won the 500 Sprint Car Tour race there last year.
“Anderson is challenging; it’s always a little different every time, and this time it struggled to build up rubber and I got looser and looser all race,” Swanson said after Sunday’s race. “Dakoda had a little better handling car, which helped him in lapped traffic. We’ll work on that and try to be better next time.”
Swanson said that he had several close calls with lapped traffic, but added “that’s part of the challenge here; we’ll have even more when we come back here in May for the Little 500.
“To set quick time and finish second in the first race of the year, I think we’re off to a good start,” added Swanson, who suffered a broken left foot in a non-racing accident on Christmas Day. “My foot is OK; it didn’t affect me at all in the race,” he said.
“I want to thank the Doran Binks crew for their hard work, and Mission Foods and Glenn Farms for their support,” he concluded.
By: Richie Murray – USAC Media
Speedway, Indiana (April 12, 2024)………For any racer with the level of accomplishments Kody Swanson has accrued throughout his career, there are always obstacles to overcome and hills to climb en route to a successful season.
Swanson knows this all too well, and to prove it, he’s racked up seven driving titles and 40 victories on his illustrious USAC Silver Crown resume. However, the 2024 season has presented him with an unanticipated obstacle unlike any other he’s ever faced.
On Christmas morning roughly three-and-a-half months ago, Swanson’s season and the future of his racing career instantly came into question in a split second. An accident at his parents’ house in Kingsburg, Calif. resulted in a severely broken left foot. Swanson was ultimately rushed into surgery that same day.
After returning to his parents’ home, he remained there until after the new year until he was cleared to fly back home to his Brownsburg, Ind. residence. Fitted with an external fixator designed to keep his fractured bones stabilized and aligned, Swanson arrived home and made an appointment with Dr. Timothy Weber and his team at OrthoIndy, which has been the location of many racecar driver restorations over the years.
An MRI was followed by a CT scan to see the lay of the land, so to speak, and on January 12, Swanson underwent a second surgery to install plates and screws into his foot. The physical anguish in the aftermath of the accident goes without speaking, but the mental agony that goes along with it can prove to be just as painful.
“At the beginning, it was really hard to know what the status was,” Swanson began. “My first thought was, ‘well, I’m going to miss the Chili Bowl.’ At surgery that first night, I found out what they’d seen after they’d gotten inside and saw what kind of damage was really done. The numbers they threw out ended with six months, and you think, ‘wow, am I really going to be out through the month of May and through June?’ Then it’s, ‘what’s the recovery going to be like after something this big?’”
Among the individuals who have been key in Swanson’s recovery is USAC Triple Crown champion Tracy Hines. Hines can relate to Swanson’s predicament. In 2007, Hines suffered a fractured pelvis, a broken left femur and a dislocated right knee, among injuries, in an off-road dirt bike crash. Hines encouraged Swanson to keep his mind on the task at hand and laid out the stark realities of the situation and the expectations of what’s in store in the days, weeks and months ahead.
“Tracy is someone that I’ve leaned on pretty heavily, especially at the beginning, in knowing what to expect, making sure I ask the right questions and what I need to be aware of on my end so I can try to help the healing process as much as I can,” Swanson explained. “Justin Grant is another one who encouraged me to get into OrthoIndy where they have such a great group who’ve seen things like this before. Just like you want the right people working on your racecar, you also want the right people patching you back together. I’ve been really fortunate that on every step along the way, I’ve had great help.”
However, from the start, Swanson wasn’t keen on the idea of an agonizing six-month wait to get back to work.
“Pushing forward, it’s like, ‘okay, that’s our official timeline,’” Swanson remarked. “If I do my job all the way right, maybe it’ll heal quicker. So far, I’ve been fortunate that that’s what’s happening, and it’s been healing really well. I had regained my stability and was able to begin walking ahead of schedule. I was able to put weight on it and do all those things to try and regain the mobility and strength that I had lost over that time.”
Through rigorous rehabilitation sessions and physical therapy, Swanson began to see the improvements as well as the figurative light at the end of the tunnel. He took on the anti-gravity treadmill at 35% weight starting February 13, and from that point forward, made regular visits to the gym at PitFit, despite still utilizing crutches.
“They brought me a chair and allowed me to sit down,” Swanson recalled. “I could do some upper body work and do whatever I could to try and keep my cardio and my body strength up in order to recover as quickly as I could to be ready for that first opportunity.”
A major milestone was reached on March 4 when Swanson took his first steps without the aid of crutches by walking across a parking lot with full weight. Throughout the three-month process, Swanson spoke of how he made it a priority to take advantage of the forced slow down.
“I feel like if God wanted me to see something through this to make sure I didn’t miss it, it’s that there are so many things in this fast-paced life that we take for granted. I have an even greater appreciation for it now and enjoy the little things so much more.”
In a sense, this isn’t completely new territory for Swanson. During the 2011 USAC National Midget Hut 100 at Haubstadt, Indiana’s Tri-State Speedway, a turn three ramp over another driver’s wheel sent Swanson into a series of flips that resulted in a broken skull and pelvis (in two places) as well as a fractured collarbone. However, the difference in this recent incident is that the bones needed to be reset in his foot. It’s a surgery and recovery that Swanson admitted was “a different experience.”
With that said, Swanson’s mindset was also set on getting back behind the wheel of a racecar. After all, a mere eight weeks after the 2011 accident, he was back in victory lane at Indianapolis Raceway Park with the USAC Silver Crown series.
On April 4, Swanson’s X-Rays allowed the surgeons to give him the blessing to get back on track. On April 9, he returned to the seat of the Doran Racing sprint car for a practice session at Anderson (Ind.) Speedway where all went well. Now the focus is set to “race mode” for the USAC Silver Crown opener on Saturday, April 20, at Ohio’s Toledo Speedway.
“As you recover, you just focus on the next one – the next opportunity and the next race – and it’s the same way I’ve approached it before,” Swanson revealed. “It would be great to kick off the comeback with a win, but at the same time, the series is as competitive as it gets, and there are a lot of guys wanting to win all the same. For me, it’s just about focusing on trying to be as ready as I can be for it.”
Swanson is thankful for all the support he’s had along the way from the people who’ve helped directly, to the people who’ve called, and especially his wife, Jordan. As Kody puts it, she’s had to help patch him back together twice now in addition to keeping the household going with two young sons to care for.
He’s mentally and physically preparing for the demanding 100-lap, 50-mile test on the half-mile paved oval of Toledo, and as everyone has become undeniably aware of by this point, Swanson won’t allow himself to be outworked and he won’t miss any details along the way. Even an unintended pun couldn’t slip by Swanson without a laugh.
“Time will tell to see how good it goes, but I’m going to put one good foot forward to try and be as ready as I can be.”
Photos by GWC Media and Gilberts Photography
SOUTHWICK, Mass., Oct. 30 — A dream came true for team owner Tim Bertrand when driver Kody Swanson and the rest of the Bertrand Motorsports team won a special 30-lap midget race at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park (IRP) on Oct. 15.
Bertrand has always wanted to see one of his cars win a feature at the storied 0.686-mile asphalt oval in Brownsburg, Ind., but prior to that day his midgets had always come up shy of the top spot there. Despite his best efforts, an IRP victory remained an unchecked line on his bucket list.
So when Swanson took the checkered flag, both Bertrand and his driver got a little emotional.
The race was one-third of the Howard Companies Championship Sunday at IRP, and part of IRP’s three-race Browns Oil Service National Pavement Midget Championship. Since it was coupled with the USAC Silver Crown and the 500 Sprint Car Tour season finales, many of the nation’s top open-wheel asphalt drivers were on hand and had midget rides too.
But it was Swanson who took the checkered flag first after grabbing the lead from Davey Hamilton Jr. on lap seven and showing the way the rest of the race in one of the Bertrand Motorsports cars, as Todd Bertrand (Tim’s brother) and Nathan Byrd were his teammates. Swanson’s car is a Gerhardt chassis previously owned and meticulously maintained by Jerome Rodela with a Stanton SR-11X Mopar engine. Swanson had a whopping 4.593-second margin of victory over Justin Grant, who just sealed up his second consecutive USAC AMSOIL national sprint car championship.
Swanson, a native of Kingsburg, Calif., who resides in Indianapolis, and his brother, Tanner, are both masters at IRP. They have the most USAC Silver Crown victories ever at the track. Tanner just broke their tie with eight, and Kody currently has seven.
Kody Swanson is the winningest driver in USAC Silver Crown history with seven championships, and both brothers are also aces in an asphalt sprint or midget.
It marked the second year of Kody Swanson’s participation with the Southwick, Mass.-based Bertrand Motorsports, which has won 12 Northeastern Midget Association (NEMA) championships, including this year. In fact, Bertrand Motorsports drivers Avery Stoehr of Lakeville, Mass. and Randy Cabral of Plymouth, Mass., finished first and second in the NEMA point standings this year, just like they did in 2022. Bertrand Motorsports now has 12 NEMA championships and 105 NEMA feature victories. That puts the team just one win away from the late Gene Angelillo, the all-time NEMA car owner winner, who has 106 feature victories.
Indy is a long tow from New England, but that didn’t dissuade Bertrand from wanting to see one of his cars in victory lane at IRP.
“Winning at IRP has been a life-long dream for our team,” he said. “It has been an absolute pleasure to work with Kody and his family the last two seasons. He has helped to bring our program to the next level. It was also great to have our good friend Danny Drinan at the last IRP race. We would not have run as well as we did without him.
“IRP is one of the toughest tracks in the world,” Bertrand added. “One cloud that moves in and covers the sun before race time, and your day could be ruined. It is such a technical track — both from a setup and driving perspective.
“IRP also has a ton of history with the midgets. Newman, Stewart, Drinan, Vogler, Fedorcak — the list goes on of the amazing drivers who made their name at IRP. I recall watching ‘Thursday Night Thunder’ when I was a kid, and dreamed of either racing or owning a car that ran there some day,” Bertrand said. “I’ve been aiming for an IRP win my whole racing career.”
“Thursday Night Thunder,” which originally aired on ESPN and ESPN2 from 1989 to 2002, drew national attention to racing on short tracks, including IRP. The Emmy-awarding winning program also saw the birth of some of the sports’ legendary drivers.
“IRP can be such a challenging track, and winning in any division is tough, but I feel like the midgets can be the toughest,” Swanson said. “They seem to be the most affected by any changes in track conditions, and it makes them so difficult to keep up with on what the cars need on any particular day.
“Tim has never been shy with his passion for racing, or his drive to win, and he has never wavered in his pursuit to win at IRP,” Swanson continued. “His family and his entire team have continued to put in the time and effort— bringing multiple cars from such a distance to support this type of racing, and continue towards a chance to win. It has been a special team to be a part of, to witness how motivated everyone has been to work through the low spots, trying to get faster, or get better, or just find what might be missing.
“I'm really thankful for the opportunity to race with Tim, his family and this team, and I'm extremely excited to have been able to win one at IRP together.”
Bertrand Motorsports also started 2023 with a bang when it was part of a joint effort with Kevin Swindell and driver Logan Seavey that resulted in a victory in the 37th running of the Lucas Oil Chili Bowl Nationals in Tulsa, Okla., in January. The Chili Bowl is the biggest indoor dirt midget race in the world, and a winter happening.
The team has one more race in 2023, as it will field three midgets for Swanson, Todd Bertrand and Byrd in the first annual Open Wheel Showdown at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway Bullring, a three-eighths-mile asphalt track, on Dec. 1-2. A modern version of the former Copper World Classic, it’s a tripleheader for midgets, winged sprint cars and supermodifieds.
But no matter what happens in Vegas, it’s been a very good year for Bertrand Motorsports, especially now that IRP is finally crossed off its bucket list.
Team sponsors include Stanton, Lakeview Advisors LLC, Pinnacle Financial, Bass Plating, Eibach, and JRC Transportation.
BROWNBURG, Ind., Oct. 16 — Doran Binks Racing and driver Kody Swanson finished fourth in the USAC Silver Crown series’ 100-lap season finale Sunday at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park with their Mission Foods/Glenn Farms No. 77. They placed second in the series’ point standings for 2023, coming up just seven points shy of repeating as the series’ champions.
The slim margin underscores how competitive the championship was. Driver Logan Seavey and the Rice Motorsports/Abacus Racing team won the title in USAC’s top class with 676 points to Swanson and Doran Binks Racing’s 669. A total of 836 points were up for grabs in the series’ 11 races.
Doran Binks Racing and Swanson also finished second in the 2023 edition of the 500 Sprint Car Tour Presented by Auto Value Bumper to Bumper Parts Stores after also winning that series’ inaugural championship last year. They had an eighth-place finish in the 500 Sprint Car Tour’s 40-lap race on Sunday at IRP. That championship’s margin was larger at 58 points, as Tyler Roahrig won the title with 1,818 points to Swanson’s 1,760 after nine races, unofficially.
Swanson guided the Mission Foods/Glenn Farms No. 77 to five victories in 2023 within the two series, which started in April. In a combined total of 20 races within the two series, he was only out of the top five three times, which is a remarkable accomplishment for the Kingsburg, Calif., native and the team based in Lebanon, Ohio.
The team used two different engine manufacturers during the year. A Lanci-prepped Ford powered the Silver Crown car at IRP while the sprint car’s powerplant was a Binks-prepped Chevrolet.
USAC Silver Crown
The weekend’s races at IRP, which also included a midget feature that Swanson won driving for Bertrand Motorsports, were supposed to be held on Saturday. Practice and qualifying were completed on Saturday but the three main events of the program, which was sponsored by the Howard Companies, were pushed to Sunday afternoon due to rain.
On Saturday Swanson won the pole for the USAC Silver Crown race with a time of 20.838 seconds for the 0.686-mile asphalt oval. That was worth three bonus points, and it also extended his record for the most poles in the history of the series to 46. Bobby Santos III qualified second followed by Kody’s brother, Tanner Swanson; Justin Grant and Seavey in the 23-car field.
Kody Swanson and Santos were side by side entering Turn 1 on the first lap, but Swanson had the advantage as they exited the turn and he held the lead for almost a quarter of the race while Seavey slipped to seventh place. In the early going Kody Swanson set the fastest lap run by anyone in the race with a time of 21.289 on lap two, and on lap 17 he had a 0.810-second lead over Santos.
Around that point he was having some issues, however. “It got really tight out of nowhere around lap 20,” he related afterwards, and on lap 24 both his brother and Santos got around him to push him to third.
Tanner Swanson was never again headed, and he won the race by a whopping 9.799 seconds over Santos, Grant, Kody Swanson and C.J. Leary. His victory was his eighth USAC Silver Crown win at IRP, making him the series’ winningest driver at this track and edging Kody, who has seven Silver Crown triumphs at IRP.
Although Tanner had things going his way up front, his brother’s race was getting more complicated. On lap 26 Grant and Leary passed him to push him to fifth, and he remained in fifth through lap 47. That included a yellow-flag period from laps 45 through 53 when Trey Burke’s car began smoking. Although Kody was in fifth place before the yellow, he was some 4.462 seconds ahead of the only driver still in contention for the title, point leader Seavey, who ran in sixth. This was despite the fact Kody had hit the wall slightly in Turn 1 once due to handling issues.
That margin disappeared when Kody pulled off the track and went to the work area on lap 47 and lap 50 under yellow, hoping to make some adjustments to improve the car for a better chance at a good finish. He dropped from fifth to 11th place due to the stops, but he did not lose a lap due to the crew’s quick work.
The green waved again on lap 54, but it was short lived. When Kody entered Turn 1 the car wouldn’t turn properly and he hit the wall between Turns 1 and 2, unfortunately collecting the 15th-place car of Derek Bischak. Kody was able to continue but Bischak’s day was done. The yellow was the final one of the race, and it lasted from laps 55 through 60.
Although the handling of his car was still compromised, Kody was determined to do everything he could to gain every position possible and keep his title hopes alive. That resulted in a valiant effort that was definitely memorable.
He rose from 11th to ninth on lap 63 by passing Dakoda Armstrong and Kyle O’Gara. Two laps later he moved into eighth place by passing Kaylee Bryson, the series’ Rookie of the Year. Two laps after that he got seventh by passing Mario Clouser, and on lap 73 he moved into sixth by passing Davey Hamilton Jr.
The rest of the race was a battle royale for fourth between Seavey, Leary and Kody.
Kody pulled abreast of Seavey several times in Turn 1 and Turn 4 but couldn’t make a pass stick. But on lap 98 of 100 Kody passed Seavey on the backstretch and Leary going into Turn 3 to rise to fourth, which is where he finished.
“Our car was really good for a while,” Kody said after the race. “We changed the rear end before the race, and we had brake problems off and on all weekend. I got into the wall once in Turn 1. Then on the restart the same thing happened in the same turn as the car just wouldn’t turn, and Derek Bischak got collected in it. I hate to have made a mistake that put him out of the race.
“The car was a handful but I kept trying because it was the only chance we had. I kept moving around the track to try to find a line that would give us a chance.
“I want to congratulate Logan Seavey and his team for winning the championship. I also want to thank the Doran Binks crew for all their hard work this year. We came really close. I also want to thank all our sponsors, especially Mission Foods and Glenn Farms, for their support.”
500 Sprint Car Tour
Kody Swanson entered the weekend second to Roahrig by 13 points in the 500 Sprint Car Tour point standings. In addition to Roahrig and Swanson, Armstrong, O’Gara and Santos were still in the running for the title at the season finale.
Swanson qualified fourth on Saturday with a time of 20.536 seconds, just 0.225 off Roahrig’s fast time. The inversion was a six, so Swanson started third in the 23-car field for the 40-lapper, which was the 64th running of the Joe James/Pat O’Connor Memorial. Tanner Swanson started on the pole with Santos alongside him. Billy Wease started beside Kody, while Jake Trainor started fifth next to Roahrig.
Kody Swanson went low at the drop of the green. The Swanson brothers and Santos were three wide in Turn 2 but Kody had the lead by Turn 4 of the first lap with Santos second, while Wease edged ahead of Tanner Swanson for third.
Santos dropped from second to sixth on lap two, so the top five at that point were Kody Swanson, Wease, Tanner Swanson, Roahrig and Trainor.
Kody was able to build up a half-second lead over Wease by lap five. Two laps later Roahrig passed Tanner for third, and then Tanner dropped back to sixth.
Roahrig passed Wease for second place on lap 11, and then he got under Kody in Turn 4 for the lead working lap 13. Roahrig led the rest of the way.
O’Gara passed Wease for third on lap 17 and Kody for second on lap 18, and he ran in second place the rest of the race.
Yellow-flag laps didn’t count and there was only one caution, which came out with 18 laps down when the car that was 10th, driven by Bryan Gossel, started to smoke and he pitted. Santos also pitted at that point and he also retired.
Swanson kept up with Roahrig and O’Gara on the restart but on lap 20 he dropped from third to fifth when Wease and Tanner Swanson passed him. On the following lap he dropped to eighth when Trainor, Taylor Ferns and Jackson Macenko, the series’ Rookie of the Year, also got by, and that’s where he finished.
Roahrig had a 3.284-second margin of victory over O’Gara. Tanner Swanson was third followed by Wease, Ferns, Trainor and Macenko. Kody was pressured in the late stages by Nick Hamilton, but he held on for eighth. Brian Gerster rounded out the top 10.
“We struggled to get our car to handle,” Kody said afterwards. “We thought we had it closer, but it got way too tight.
“Congratulations to Tyler and his team for winning the title,” he said. “We had a good season, and I want to thank all the men and women on our team and our sponsors for their support.”
The weekend’s races were streamed live on Flo Racing.
For more information see DoranRacing.com.
ANDERSON, Ind., Oct. 8 — Doran Binks Racing’s Kody Swanson kept the Mission Foods/Glenn Farms No. 77 in fourth place from start to finish in the Tony Elliott Classic Saturday at Anderson Speedway to retain second place in the 2023 point standings of the 500 Sprint Car Tour Presented by Auto Value Bumper to Bumper Parts Stores with one event remaining.
Dakoda Armstrong passed Taylor Ferns on lap 46 and went on to post his first series victory by 4.426 seconds over Ferns, who led the first 45 laps of the 100-lap race on the quarter-mile asphalt oval. They were the only drivers to lead. Point leader Tyler Roahrig won the pole and finished third, followed by Swanson and Caleb Armstrong. Billy Wease, Kyle O’Gara, Bobby Santos III, Brian Vaughn, and Trey Burke rounded out the top 10.
ROSSBURG, Ohio, Sept. 24 — Kody Swanson trailed point leader Logan Seavey by just one point going into the USAC Silver Crown race that was part of the 41st 4-Crown Nationals at Eldora Speedway. Swanson drove the Doran Binks Racing Mission Foods/Glenn Farms No. 77 to a solid fifth-place finish in the 50-lapper that ended in the wee hours of Sunday morning, but Seavey won the race and led the most laps to extend his lead to 16 points going into the season finale Oct. 14 at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park in Brownsburg, Ind. No other drivers have enough points to contend for the title at the season finale. A maximum total of 76 points are up for grabs on Oct. 14.
Swanson qualified eighth but he actually started seventh behind polesitter Justin Grant, C.J. Leary, Jake Swanson, Chase Dietz, Seavey, and Matt Westfall. Brady Bacon qualified third but suffered an eye injury before the race, so Tyler Courtney substituted for him and went to the rear of the field for the green.
Jake Swanson (no relation) had a bad start and faded from third to seventh on the first lap, which elevated Kody Swanson to sixth place. He remained in sixth for the first 22 laps, which included a yellow with six laps down when Matt Mitchell drew the race’s only caution flag.
Although Grant won the pole, he had dropped to fifth by lap eight, which put him right in front of Swanson. The pair battled the rest of race as they experimented with their lines to try to find the fastest way around the half-mile clay oval.
AMHERST, Ohio, Sept. 11 — The 500 Sprint Car Tour Presented by Auto Value Bumper to Bumper Parts Stores sanctioned a race at Lorain Raceway Park for the first time Saturday night. Many of the teams entered were seeing the three-eighths mile asphalt oval for the first time, so they didn’t have many notes to help determine their set-ups. That was the case with Doran Binks Racing, but it still recorded a top-five finish of fourth with driver Kody Swanson in the 50-lap main event.
Swanson qualified fifth in the 14-car field with a time of 14.067 seconds with the Mission Foods/Glenn Farms No. 77, which was just 0.134 off Tyler Roahrig’s fast time of 13.933. That was a new track record for non-wing sprint cars here, as the old mark was 14.653 set by Bobby Santos III in 2017.
The inversion was a six, so Swanson started second beside polesitter Kyle O’Gara with the No. 77, which is powered by a Binks Chevy engine. O’Gara led all 50 laps of the race, which only had one yellow flag to condense the field.
DU QUOIN, Ill., Sept. 4 — Doran Binks Racing’s Mission Foods/Glenn Farms No. 77 driven by Kody Swanson was the fastest car in the 69th running of the Ted Horn 100 USAC Silver Crown race at the Du Quoin State Fairgrounds Saturday afternoon. Track position was everything, however. Swanson put on a stirring charge to advance to third at the checkered after starting eighth in a race that only had three caution flags once it got underway.
Justin Grant started on the pole and led all but the first lap of the 100-lapper, when C.J. Leary, who started second, had the point in the 29-car field on the 1-mile dirt oval.
But it was Swanson who set the fastest lap of anyone in the race. He gave it his all right up to the end with the No. 77, a Maxim with a Bob Hampshire-prepped Chevy engine, as he set the fastest race lap on lap 99 with a time of 31.363 seconds. He was also the fastest driver around the halfway point after he ran a lap in 31.675 on lap 58.
MADISON, Ill., Aug. 28 — It was an up-and-down day for Doran Binks Racing and driver Kody Swanson in USAC Silver Crown action Sunday in the shadows of the Gateway Arch at World Wide Technology Raceway. Swanson won the pole and led more than a quarter of the 80-lap/100-mile race on the 1.25-mile asphalt oval until a mechanical issue dropped the Mission Foods/Glenn Farms No. 77 to 14th place in the official rundown of the Outfront Media USA 100.
The event shared the card with the NTT IndyCar Series’ Bommarito Automotive Group 500.
After leading the 22-car field to the green flag, Swanson dropped to third initially with the No. 77, which is powered by a Lanci-prepped Ford engine. He quickly moved into second before two laps were in the books as the top runners ran inches apart. He regained the lead from Logan Seavey as the top pack jockeyed for positions, but dropped to second again when C.J. Leary slipped under him coming out of Turn 1 on lap five.
SPRINGFIELD, Ill., Aug. 20 — Although Logan Seavey gained 15 points on Kody Swanson for winning the 60th annual Bettenhausen 100 USAC Silver Crown race at the Illinois State Fairgrounds, Swanson and the Doran Binks Racing team still lead the overall point standings due to their solid fourth-place finish in the 100-lapper on the 1-mile dirt oval Saturday afternoon.
Driving the Mission Foods No. 77 powered by a Lanci Ford engine, Swanson started tenth in the 31-car field, but he certainly didn’t stay there long once the green flag dropped.
He passed Davey Ray, Wayne Johnson and Mario Clouser on the first lap to rise to seventh place, and he got sixth by passing Jacob Wilson on lap two. The native of Kingsburg, Calif., who now lives in Indianapolis remained in sixth place through lap 10, and advanced to fifth on lap 11 by passing Justin Grant.
MISSION FOODS TO SPONSOR SWANSON
In Doran Binks Racing No. 77 in 2023
For USAC Silver Crown and 500 Sprint Car Tour Series
LEBANON, Ohio, March 29 — Mission Foods, the leading producer of tortillas in the United States and the manufacturer of a variety of authentic Mexican products, will be the primary sponsor of Kody Swanson this year in both the USAC Silver Crown and the 500 Sprint Car Tour series.
Swanson is the defending champion of both series.
Swanson’s cars will be fielded by Kevin Doran and Dan Binks working together as Doran Binks Racing, and they will be based at Doran Racing’s headquarters in Lebanon, Ohio. Glenn Farms will be the team’s associate sponsor. The race cars will all be No. 77.
Doran Racing fielded Swanson’s asphalt USAC Silver Crown car last year. This year Doran Binks Racing will field both the asphalt and dirt USAC Silver Crown cars for Swanson.
Doran Binks Racing plans to compete in all 14 USAC Silver Crown races in 2023. As a seven-time champion, Swanson’s 37 victories make him the winningest driver in the history of this series, the top class of USAC.
Swanson, a native of Kingsburg, Calif., who now lives in Indianapolis, won three races enroute to last year’s USAC Silver Crown title. In August he beat his own world speed record for a traditional USAC Silver Crown car with a speed of 146.699 miles per hour during qualifying at World Wide Technology Raceway in Madison, Ill.
The 500 Sprint Car Tour consists of 10 races this year. It includes the most prestigious asphalt sprint car race in the world, the 75th annual Lucas Oil Little 500 presented by UAW on May 27 at Anderson (Ind.) Speedway. Swanson is a three-time winner of the Little 500.
Last year Doran Racing and Swanson posted two victories, six podium finishes and won the inaugural 500 Sprint Car Tour championship using engines prepared by Binks.
"I'm excited about this year and the season ahead,” said Swanson. “This is a tremendous opportunity to work together with some great friends and talented racers, and do it all out of the same building. I'm thankful for the chance to partner with the Mission brand, and hope to represent an iconic company well while competing for wins and championships."
While Swanson is a legend in USAC, Doran and Binks are both legends in endurance sports car racing.
Doran has won the Rolex 24 at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway as a crew chief, a team member, a team manager, a car owner, and even as a car manufacturer. Prior to fielding cars under Doran Racing, he had many victories with the late Al Holbert, a five-time IMSA Camel GT champion; the MOMO Ferrari team, and Doran Lista Racing.
Binks, of Brighton, Mich., was the crew chief for Corvette Racing’s factory sports car team for nearly 20 years. Under his direction that team won the 24 Hours of Le Mans six times and numerous IMSA championships.
Prior to becoming one of the most recognizable faces of Corvette Racing, Binks won IMSA GTU races with a Mazda RX-7 with various drivers; enjoyed great success in Trans Am, and even was a crew chief for Roush Fenway Racing in NASCAR.
The 500 Sprint Car Tour season opens Saturday, April 8 at Anderson Speedway in Anderson, Ind.
The USAC Silver Crown series opens the following weekend with the 20th running of the Sumar Classic on Sunday, April 16 at the Terre Haute (Ind.) Action Track.
About Mission Foods:
The Gruma Corporation began in 1949 and is today the leading tortilla manufacturer worldwide. Mission Foods is a proud subsidiary of Gruma, and as the #1 tortilla company in the United States, manufactures a wide variety of authentic Mexican products. Five years ago it opened a state-of-the-art plant in Dallas, Texas, with the capacity to produce 30 million tortillas daily. Today Mission Foods is a global company, with special emphasis not only on the United States but also Mexico, Central America, Europe, China, Malaysia, and Australia. Its products include flour and corn tortillas; tostadas; low-carb, whole wheat, organic and gluten-free items; wraps; flatbreads such as naan, pita and roti; tortilla chips and organic chips; chicharrones; salsa, and dips. For more information see missionfoods.com.
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