After relinquishing the lead midway through the race, Logan Seavey charged back past Keith Kunz Motorsports teammate Rico Abreu on lap 28 of 30 and went on to win the POWRI Lucas Oil National Midget League feature at Jacksonville Speedway Friday night. The victory is Seavey’s 11th of the season in POWRi competition, tying him with Christopher Bell for the series single-season record set in 2014.
Seavey’s effort resulted in the 35th national midget feature victory for a Toyota-powered driver in 2019, with the Sutter, Calif.-native, having registered 15 of those triumphs with three USAC wins, as well as a feature night win at the Chili Bowl to go along with his 11 first-place finishes in POWRi.
The evening started off with Toyota drivers Jesse Colwell and Tyler Thomas occupying the front row as the green flag flew. The two ran side-by-side on the first lap before Thomas would run the top to take the lead. It would be short-lived, though, as Thomas went over the cushion on lap two and made contact with the wall to bring out a caution flag. Thomas was able to restart at the back of the field.
Colwell would once again lead the field on the restart with Seavey beside him. Colwell continued to run the bottom while Seavey went high to lead lap two, with Colwell in second, Cannon McIntosh in third, Tucker Klaasmeyer in fourth and Abreu rounding out the top five.
As Seavey paced the race, McIntosh would take over second on lap four, while Abreu moved up to fourth and quickly set his sights on Colwell and third place. By lap six, Abreu would move into the top three in his pursuit for a third-straight POWRi win after sweeping a pair of races at I-55 Raceway in August.
With a caution slowing the field on lap eight, Abreu would use the restart to catch McIntosh for second, eventually rolling the bottom to overtake him on lap nine and then began to close in on Seavey for the top spot.
By lap 13, Abreu had caught him and then used a slider in turn three of the quarter-mile track to move past Seavey and then held him off coming back to start/finish to lead the lap. At the midway point, it was Abreu, followed by Seavey, McIntosh, Colwell, Tanner Thorson and Zach Daum.
As Abreu continued to pace the race, Thorson would move past Colwell for third on lap 17, setting up a battle for fourth between the two championship leaders, Colwell and Daum. Daum would finally move past Colwell to take over the top fifth spot on lap 23.
As the laps began to wind down, Seavey started to close in on Abreu in the final five laps as the cars began to battle lapped traffic. Finally, on lap 28 Seavey would make his move down the back straight, powering past Abreu into turn three, then holding him off back to the scoring stand. Abreu would make one last run on the final lap, but it wasn’t enough as Seavey claimed his fifth Jacksonville POWRi victory. Abreu would finish second, followed by Thorson in third, McIntosh was fourth and Daum gave Toyota four of the top-five finishers. Colwell would place seventh with teammates Klaasmeyer and Tanner Carrick finishing eighth and ninth, respectively.
On the strength of his fifth-place finish, Daum gained 20 points in the POWRi championship race and now trails Colwell by 150 with six races remaining.
The POWRi Lucas Oil National Midget League is back in action at Jacksonville Speedway Saturday night.
Toyota Jacksonville Speedway Results
Logan Seavey – 1st
Rico Abreu – 2nd
Cannon McIntosh – 4th
Zach Daum – 5th
Jesse Colwell – 7th
Tucker Klaasmeyer – 8th
Tanner Carrick – 9th
Jesse Love – 12th
Daison Pursley – 14th
Holley Hollan – 15th
POWRi Point Standings
1. Jesse Colwell – 6330
2. Zach Daum – 6180
3. Jake Neuman – 5430
4. Holley Hollan – 5310
5. Cannon McIntosh – 5240
*Toyota Drivers in Bold
Toyota Racing PR
