Swanson Gets Top-Five Finish at Port Royal

Top-five finishes are crucial when trying to defend a championship, and Doran Binks Racing’s Kody Swanson recorded another one in pursuit of his unprecedented eighth USAC Silver Crown title when he finished fifth in the 50-lap USAC Silver Crown race Saturday night at Port Royal Speedway.

His Mission Foods No. 77, a Maxim chassis powered by a Hampshire Chevy engine that is also sponsored by Glenn Farms, started second in the 26-car field on the half-mile clay oval, but Swanson beat polesitter Mitchel Moles into the first turn and led the first 21 laps. Brady Bacon passed Moles for second on lap two and tried to get around Swanson both on the low side and the high side to no avail. By lap 10 Swanson had a 1.567-second lead over Bacon, who was followed by Moles, Chase Dietz and Logan Seavey.

The fight for second was intense, which allowed Swanson to increase his lead to over 2 seconds by lap 13. Seavey got around Bacon for second three laps later, and he was able to cut Swanson’s lead to 0.796 of a second by lap 20 when the second of three cautions waved.

Swanson fought Seavey off on the restart but Seavey took the lead in Turn 3 on lap 22, relegating Swanson to second. On lap 24 Swanson, Bacon and Dietz were three abreast flying down the frontstretch as they battled for second. That battle allowed Seavey to build up a 3-second lead over Swanson by lap 31.

Swanson held second until lap 37, when Dietz got by. Bacon passed him on the following lap to relegate him to fourth.

The third and final yellow flew with 46 laps down for an incident involving Trey Burke and Mario Clouser. Carmen Perigo slipped under Swanson for fourth on the restart, but Swanson was able to finish fifth by holding off Justin Grant until the checkered.

Seavey, who also won this race last year, took the checkered over Dietz, who had a stellar series debut. Bacon was third followed by Perigo and Swanson.

“It’s tough to lead laps and not come away with a win, but it is nice to be disappointed with a top-five finish for me at a place like Port Royal,” Swanson said afterwards.

“I’m thankful for the hard work from everyone involved with our dirt Silver Crown effort. We had a good run in qualifying and have been strong at different parts of the night, but just need to find something to keep our Mission Foods/Glenn Farms No. 77 a little better at the end of the feature. All considered, I think they’re good problems for us to have this early in the [dirt] season, and I am grateful for all of us working together to keep our dirt program improving.”

Swanson set the fastest lap of the race on lap 3 with a time of 22.273 seconds. He qualified second with a 20.918 to Moles’ new track record of 20.899.

The next USAC Silver Crown race is the Bytec Dairyland 100 this coming Friday, June 23, at Madison International Speedway in Oregon, Wis.

All of the USAC Silver Crown races are streamed live by Flo Racing.

For more information see DoranRacing.com.

Doran Racing PR