Pit Stop Radio News

Tanner Carrick led Logan Seavey and Zach Daum in a Toyota one-two-three finish at the POWRi Lucas Oil National Midget League’s 37th annual Pepsi Nationals at Angell Park Speedway in Sun Prairie, Wis., the third-longest running event in midget car racing.

The win is the second of the season for the 16-year-old Carrick and the 22nd national midget feature win for a Toyota-powered driver this year. It also marks the ninth consecutive Toyota win at the Pepsi Nationals.

It was Carrick’s Keith Kunz Motorsports (KKM) teammate Ryan Robinson who took the lead on the opening lap Sunday night, but that wouldn’t last long as defending champion Daum quickly moved up and passed Robinson coming out of turn four on lap two on the one-third mile oval.

Daum began to pull away from the field and was coming up to lapped traffic before a caution bunched the field on lap 11. He would lead the field to green with Carrick second, but it was Seavey who would use the high side to go around both Carrick and Daum coming out of turn two to take the lead on lap 12.

Daum would briefly fight back into the lead on the following circuit, but couldn’t hold off Seavey coming into the line. At that point, Seavey led Daum, with a charging Tucker Klaasmeyer moving past Carrick for third at the midway point of the 30-lap event.

Carrick would eventually use the high side to move up back up through the field as the laps began to wane to push past both Klaasmeyer and Daum for second and start to reel in his KKM teammate Seavey. As Seavey, the 2017 series champion, came to the white flag he began to encounter heavy lapped traffic.

Carrick pulled up side-by-side with Seavey coming out of turn two on the final lap, but Seavey would hold the lead through turns three and four. Seavey took the middle line as lapped cars moved low, while Carrick went wide coming out of four as the two cars pulled side-by-side heading to the checkered flag with Carrick powering past to win by inches in a photo finish. Daum came home third to complete the Toyota sweep of the podium.

“I was glad to see Logan turn it there off the bottom,” said Carrick. “He didn’t know I was there and by the time I went to pass him it was a really late chance. I shouldn’t have tried running the middle around Daum on the restart, but I learned my lesson and drove back. I can’t thank enough my team for all their hard work. Only two of our cars rolled back in the trailer last night. By the end of the night, we had them all ready to go for today.”

Klaasmeyer made it four Toyotas in the top-five with a fifth-place showing, followed by Holly Shelton in sixth, Sam Johnson in 11th, Robinson in 12th and Holley Hollan in 19th.

Klaasmeyer stretched his POWRi point lead to 120 over teammate Robinson, as Seavey remained third and three-time series champ Daum continues to hold down fourth.

The POWRi Lucas Oil National Midget League is back in action next weekend with a double-header at Valley Speedway in Grain Valley, Mo., July 13-14. In addition, USAC will feature five events this week, beginning Tuesday night at Red Dirt Raceway in Meeker, Oklahoma, in one of the busiest weeks of the year for midget car racing.