by Don Martin – Coming off winning the POWRI National Midget Championship and grabbing a top ten finish at this year’s Chili Bowl, Logan Seavy’s momentum continued last Saturday night at the Southern Illinois Center. He captured the 3rd Annual Shamrock Classic feature and his first USAC National feature win. It was opening night for the USAC National Midgets in 2018 and the 20 year old Seavy from Sutter, California led all 50 laps in his Keith Kunz – Agajanian Curb Toyota Spike Mobil 1 entry #67.

Logan earned the pole for the feature after being high point man after the heat races and qualifiers. Seavy was married to the bottom of the 1/6 mile flat oval and never made a mistake the entire feature to get his first win at DuQuoin. A pair of Indiana drivers took second and third, Brent Beauchamp and the young talented driver Zeb Wise driving for Clauson-Marshall . Ryan Robinson finished fourth driving for Keith Kunz, it should be noted it was very tough to pass on the outside and Robinson was one of the drivers that actually left the bottom and tried running the top to get the win. The move backfired and he lost a few positions. Justin Grant rounded out the top five in the feature after starting 21st on the grid. Dave Darland finished 6th driving for Sarah Fisher and didn’t even know he was racing until the morning of the event. Chad Boat, Gage Walker, Terry Babb, and Daniel Robinson rounded out the top ten.

45 cars were on hand for the event with 11 states represented. The field was solid, Keith Kunz had 7 race cars on hand and only 3 made the main event. Defending USAC National Midget Champion Spencer Bayston and last year’s event winner Justin Grant needed to use a provisional just to make the show. A big shout out needs to go to Tyler Thomas out of Collinsville, OK, he might have had the car to beat, but a motor issue forced him to a back-up car and start at the tail of the feature. He would have started in the front row, he did however win the micro feature earlier in the evening. A great crowd was on hand for the indoor event. Promoter Lauren Stewart did a fantastic job of promoting the event with several giveaways and it was very well organized. It looks to be a very healthy year for USAC as close to 20 full time drivers are going to be chasing the title this year. USAC is definitely heading in the right direction under Levi Jones and Kirk Spridgeon.