Winning his first Midget race in more than a year on Jan. 13, that was quickly joined with a win on the biggest stage in Midget racing the next night when California’s Logan Seavey held off the charge of Tanner Thorson to win the 37th annual Lucas Oil Chili Bowl Nationals presented by General Tire in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

“I don’t even know yet,” chuckled Seavey when asked how it felt to win. “I’ll let you know tomorrow, but for now, it feels awesome. It really set in when they handed me the Driller and I got to talk to Kevin a little bit. He deserves it and will probably get a lot more, so to win this race is special, but to win it in the No. 39 on our first try is really cool.”

The 23rd driver to top the Chili Bowl, the win is a first for Kevin and Jordan Swindell as car owners. The Swindell name now accounts for 14 overall wins in Chili Bowl competition. Of that, 10 came with a Golden Driller. The pair’s time in Tulsa this year also included his first win as a car owner at the Lucas Oil Tulsa Shootout.

A redo on the restart after trailing Hank Davis, the reset for a spun car saw Seavey rolling out with the lead. Chased by Cannon McIntosh, the No. 08 kept pace before finally getting the point on Lap 21 with a low side move off of the fourth turn.

In traffic shortly after, McIntosh held the position but would find his lead challenged following Lap 30. Working the hub of the Tulsa Expo Raceway before varying his line at either end, Seavey took the Victory Fuel No. 39 back to the point on Lap 31.

Taking second in the same breath, Thorson was in pursuit. Both changing up their lines to gain an edge on the other, the track finally migrated the field low with just a handful of laps to run. Trying to set up Seavey for a last lap run, the caution would bring about a green-white-checkered finish with Seavey holding off the 2022 champion by 0.306 seconds.

Falling back to fourth at one point, McIntosh was able to get back to third with California’s Shane Golobic in fourth. Emerson Axsom completed the top five.

Making up 10 positions, Kyle Jones stormed to a sixth-place finish with Mitchel Moles in seventh. Trey Marcham from 14th landed eighth, followed by Tim Buckwalter, who made an impressive run from 23rd to ninth. Justin Grant completed the top 10.

The race saw 365 drivers officially draw in. During the Saturday Alphabet Soup, Claremore’s Kris Carroll set a new event record through “The Soup” with seven races from the N-Feature to the H-Features. That day’s run of events was slated for double P-Features but with drivers scratching began with double O-Features.

The 2023 Rookie of the Year and recipient of the Fuzzy Hahn Highest Finishing Female Award was California’s Jade Avedisian, who was the only rookie to lock into Saturday’s A-Feature. She is the second woman to do so with Kaylee Bryson in her second consecutive.

The 2024 Lucas Oil Chili Bowl Nationals presented by General Tire takes place Jan. 8 to 13 at Tulsa Expo Raceway, located inside the SageNet Center. Information on tickets will be released in the next few weeks. Ticket orders begin the first Wednesday of March.

Former Columbus racer passes away

Allen Barr of Columbus died Jan. 6. He was 86.

He was a member of the Indiana Army National Guard and served active duty with the U.S. Army during the Korean War era. He was honorably discharged Oct. 23, 1957.

He had been a heavy equipment operator for Meshberger Stone and CUI and also was a self-employed landscaper. He also was the co-owner with his son Bret of Barr Trailer Sales in Columbus.

Allen’s true passion in life was racing. He had a long history of racing motorcycles and sprint cars. Toward the end of his career, he raced late models and open wheel modifieds. He raced cars for 51 years and won more than 400 races. In 1968, he was the state champion of the TT Scramble Motorcycle Race.

Allen was a three-time Midwest Sprint Car champion and won track championships at Paragon, Lawrenceburg and Kokomo. He won the last sprint car race at Columbus 25th Street Fairgrounds Speedway, and he was a member of the Hoosier Auto Racing Fan Hall of Fame.

Former Brownstown champ dies

Ira Bastin, a multi-time track champion at both Brownstown Speedway and Tri-State Speedway in Haubstadt, died Wednesday. The Bloomington native was 82.

Bastin began his racing career in 1963 racing jalopy-style cars at Bloomington Speedway. He also ran super-modifieds (a precursor to sprint cars) until going to late model stock car racing in the late 1960s.

Bastin won three Brownstown track championships (1972, 1977 and 1978) and narrowly missed a fourth by just 1½ points to Dennis Boknecht in 1979. He captured track titles at Haubstadt in 1972 and 1980.

Besides driving for himself for several years, Bastin piloted cars owned by Sonny Arthur, Susie Mills, Gene Dalton and Butch Tucker. His brothers, Ezra and Phil, also raced.

His 40 career feature wins at Brownstown ranks him sixth on the all-time win list in the late model division behind only Jim Curry, John Gill, Don O’Neal, Steve Barnett and Paul Crockett. His first feature win at Brownstown was in 1969, and his last was 20 years later in 1989.

James Essex writes a motorsports notebook for The Tribune. Send comments to [email protected].