7 MONTH ITCH! SEAVEY BREAKS DROUGHT WITH CLOSEST USAC SPRINT WIN OF ’26 AT LERNERVILLE

Logan Seavey celebrates with his daughter, Lane, after winning Friday night’s
Commonwealth Clash at Sarver, Pennsylvania’s Lernerville Speedway. (Jim Balentine Photo)

By: Richie Murray – USAC Media

Sarver, Pennsylvania (September 11, 2026)………At this point, February seems like a lifetime ago. Over the course of the first four races of the 2026 USAC AMSOIL Sprint Car National Championship season, Logan Seavey and Abacus Racing had won twice and held a 30-point lead in the standings.

Since then, their dream start to the season has turned into a stream of frustration. Entering Friday night’s Commonwealth Clash at Sarver, Pennsylvania’s Lernerville Speedway, Seavey had endured a 35-race winless streak with the series and had finished outside the top 10 in eight of his past 10 starts, all of which mired him seventh in the point standings.

In the series’ first visit to the 4/10-mile dirt oval in 15 years, Seavey said sayonara to all of it, leading all 25 laps to capture his third win of the season in a race that featured the closest finish of the 2026 campaign thus far.

For the final eight laps, the Sutter, California native was constantly hounded by series point leader Kyle Cummins who was in position to pounce if given the slightest opportunity. On the final lap, Cummins went to the high side of turn four and pulled alongside Seavey with the checkered flag in sight.

Seavey successfully fought Cummins off to win by a single car length for a final victory margin of 0.061 seconds, the closest call across all three of USAC’s national divisions thus far throughout the 2026 season.

The win was the 36th of Seavey’s USAC National Sprint Car career, moving him past Rich Vogler and Jon Stanbrough to take over sole possession of 15th place on the all-time series win list at the helm of his Abacus Racing/Mountain Mechanical – Droplight – Indy Powersports/DRC/Stanton Chevy No. 57.

“I feel like that’s the first time since Florida that we’ve unloaded with speed,” Seavey admitted. “It just feels good to finally put a full night together.”

Back in February in Florida, Seavey and Abacus were winners at both Volusia Speedway Park and Ocala Speedway. Since then, it’s been a grind to get back on a similar track that had seen them win a total of 23 USAC National Sprint Car features during their first two years together in 2024-2025.

“Since Florida, we’ve been off the pace and we just couldn’t find balance or speed or really anything that we need to get the job done,” Seavey explained. “Ever since, we’ve been searching, and it’s not from a lack of effort. We’ve changed everything on the racecar, basically, to try to get this thing feeling a little bit better for me.”

Seavey started on the pole and appeared to be back in championship form as he built up a 1.5 second lead on the field over the course of the first 10 laps, just as lapped traffic began to enter into the fray. A few moments prior, Cummins gained second as he took the high line around Kevin Thomas Jr. in turn four on the eighth lap.

Cummins continued to slice into Seavey’s lead and had the gap pared down to just a couple car lengths at the halfway point of the race.

The only stoppage of the main event occurred on the 17th lap when Jakeb Boxell (12th) got into the back of Justin Grant (10th) entering turn three and spun to a stop. Boxell restarted at the tail of the field and came back to finish 14th.

The resulting caution put Cummins right on Seavey’s tail tank for the restart and the distance between the two remained pretty much unchanged for the most part. At the same time, Seavey had to navigate the complexities of the universe such as where to be, when to be there, the true meaning of life, and how to attack the situation, all of which weighed on his mind.

“I was feeling good there, and then that caution come out,” Seavey lamented. “I was putting lappers away pretty easily. The only spot that kind of felt out of place was three and four. I was kind of going by them in the middle and I felt like I was carrying a ton of speed, but there was so much grip on the bottom. I didn’t want to give that up either. So, I was kind of guessing in three and four and I couldn’t really tell what was better. The backstretch was getting slick and I began to struggle. A little bit of where we’ve been struggling is when the straightaways get slick. I’m just struggling to get down the straightaway and it caught me a little bit off guard.”

Whereas Seavey chose the middle ground, Cummins took his ride up to the cushion in order to make his run. Cummins stayed steady on the top around turns three and four, but in turn one, took more of a diamond route. That said, Seavey maintained his distance from Cummins, requiring Cummins to lay it all out on the final go-around. But Seavey held strong, beating Cummins to the stripe with a little shy of a car length of separation being the deciding factor.

Following Seavey and Cummins to the line were Kevin Thomas Jr. in third and Robert Ballou in fourth, both of whom were competitors in the most recent USAC event at Lernerville in 2011. C.J. Leary, back in his own No. 30, rounded out the top five.

Of the four 25-lappers run this year on the USAC National Sprint Car trail, Seavey has won two of them, with the other coming at Volusia. But this particular 25-lapper took him a bit by surprise.

“I honestly thought it was 30 laps, and all of a sudden, I saw the white flag and I didn’t get off too good at all,” Seavey recalled. “I protected into three and spun (the wheels) off four. So, I knew it was going to be close, but luckily, this car was good enough.”

A lot of wholesale changes have gone on over time as Seavey and Abacus crewmen Kirk Simpson and Daniel Whitley have tinkered with parts and pieces in order to find the exact right combination needed to get back to victory lane.

“Shout out to Willie Kahne also,” Seavey praised. “He really hurried up and got us some shocks to try to help our program out a little bit and it got us back in victory lane really fast. I’m so happy with that. I’m happy with our engines right now and Joe Devin from DRC, and everybody who’s been offering advice, and Landon Simon. There’s a long list of people who have been trying to get us better and get me feeling better. Hopefully, we’re on the right track.”

As the leader of the most laps (25) in the feature, Seavey also added the K & N Filters Clean Air award to his list for the evening.

Chase Stockon picked up four positions in advancing from 15th to 11th in the feature to secure the Rod End Supply Hard Charger award for the third time with the series this season.

Jake Swanson tied Parnelli Jones for 30th place all-time with his 18th career USAC National Sprint Car fast qualifying time. Swanson was the last driver on track for the LearnLab Qualifying session and wound up breaking a 20-year-old USAC track record at Lernerville. His time of 15.096 seconds surpassed the former USAC one-lap record of 15.337, held by Josh Wise since 2006.

Cale Coons is 17 years old. The track record he broke on Friday night was 20 years old! Coons’ time of 2:05.463 in the first heat race broke the Lernerville Speedway eight lap USAC National Sprint Car track record of 2:10.90, held by Dave Darland since 2006.

USAC AMSOIL SPRINT CAR NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP RACE RESULTS: September 11, 2026 – Lernerville Speedway – Sarver, Pennsylvania – Commonwealth Clash – 4/10-Mile Dirt Track

LEARNLAB QUALIFYING: 1. Jake Swanson, 5T, Daming Swanson-15.096 (New Track Record); 2. C.J. Leary, 30, Leary-15.169; 3. Mitchel Moles, 19AZ, Reinbold/Underwood-15.221; 4. Kyle Cummins, 3p, Petty-15.270; 5. Kevin Thomas Jr., 15, BBI-15.275; 6. Logan Seavey, 57, Abacus-15.302; 7. Justin Grant, 4, TOPP-15.320; 8. Robert Ballou, 12, Ballou-15.503; 9. Briggs Danner, 39, Hogue-15.525; 10. Eddie Tafoya Jr., 51T, Tafoya-15.594; 11. Hayden Reinbold, 19, Reinbold/Underwood-15.612; 12. Stevie Sussex, 3R, Rock Steady-15.616; 13. Cale Coons, 63, Dooling/Curb-Agajanian-15.629; 14. John Mollick, 4J, Mollick-15.703; 15. Jakeb Boxell, 54, Westfall-15.705; 16. Chase Stockon, 92, Sertich-15.807; 17. Steven Drevicki, 19s, DeGre-15.864; 18. Brandon Spithaler, 22, Burkey-16.029; 19. John Jerich, 3, Jerich-16.424; 20. Jacob Begenwald, 3J, Begenwald-16.449; 21. Joe Kata, 10, Kata-16.494; 22. Jeremy Weaver, 5, Weaver-16.500; 23. Brenden Hires, 2, Danner-17.018; 24. Jason Cherry, 67c, Cherry-17.300.

K1 RACEGEAR FIRST HEAT: (8 laps, all transfer to the feature, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Cale Coons (2), 2. Chase Stockon (1), 3. Kyle Cummins (5), 4. Justin Grant (4), 5. Jake Swanson (6), 6. Eddie Tafoya Jr. (3), 7. John Jerich (7), 8. Jeremy Weaver (8). 2:05.463 (New Track Record)

TJ FORGED SECOND HEAT: (8 laps, all transfer to the feature, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Robert Ballou (4), 2. C.J. Leary (6), 3. Steven Drevicki (1), 4. Hayden Reinbold (3), 5. Kevin Thomas Jr. (5), 6. Jacob Begenwald (7), 7. Brenden Hires (8), 8. John Mollick (2). 2:07.801

K & N FILTERS THIRD HEAT: (8 laps, all transfer to the feature, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Stevie Sussex (3), 2. Jakeb Boxell (2), 3. Briggs Danner (4), 4. Brandon Spithaler (1), 5. Mitchel Moles (6), 6. Logan Seavey (5), 7. Joe Kata (7), 8. Jason Cherry (8). 2:07.105

FEATURE: (25 laps, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Logan Seavey (1), 2. Kyle Cummins (3), 3. Kevin Thomas Jr. (2), 4. Robert Ballou (7), 5. C.J. Leary (5), 6. Stevie Sussex (8), 7. Jake Swanson (6), 8. Mitchel Moles (4), 9. Cale Coons (9), 10. Justin Grant (10), 11. Chase Stockon (15), 12. Briggs Danner (11), 13. Hayden Reinbold (13), 14. Jakeb Boxell (14), 15. Brandon Spithaler (17), 16. Steven Drevicki (16), 17. Jacob Bergenwald (18), 18. Joe Kata (20), 19. John Jerich (19), 20. Jason Cherry (22), 21. Brenden Hires (21), 22. Eddie Tafoya Jr. (12), 23. John Mollick (24), 24. Jeremy Weaver (23). NT

FEATURE LAP LEADERS: Laps 1-25 Logan Seavey.

**John Mollick flipped during the second heat.

USAC AMSOIL SPRINT CAR NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS: 1-Kyle Cummins-2729, 2-Justin Grant-2560, 3-Mitchel Moles-2509, 4-Jake Swanson-2259, 5-Briggs Danner-2188, 6-Kevin Thomas Jr.-2135, 7-Logan Seavey-2064, 8-Chase Stockon-2034, 9-Robert Ballou-2019, 10-C.J. Leary-1983.

USAC PARALLAX GROUP NATIONAL PASSING MASTER POINTS: 1-Kevin Thomas Jr.-129, 2-Hayden Reinbold-125, 3-Justin Grant-120, 4-Robert Ballou-112, 5-Briggs Danner-108, 6-Cale Coons-105, 7-Jacob Denney-102, 8-Chase Stockon-98, 9-Jake Swanson-87, 10-Mitchel Moles-78.

NEXT USAC AMSOIL SPRINT CAR NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP RACE: September 18, 2026 – Circle City Raceway – Indianapolis, Indiana – Ashlea Albertson Memorial – 1/4-Mile Dirt Track

CONTINGENCY AWARD WINNERS:

Dirt Draft Hot Laps Fastest Driver: Mitchel Moles (15.641)

LearnLab Fast Qualifier: Jake Swanson (15.096)

K1 RaceGear First Heat Winner: Cale Coons

TJ Forged Second Heat Winner: Robert Ballou

K & N Filters Third Heat Winner: Stevie Sussex

Rod End Supply Hard Charger: Chase Stockon (15th to 11th)

K & N Filters Clean Air Award: Logan Seavey (25 laps led)