SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Never before has the USAC Silver Crown championship race been tied with two races remaining.
However, Kody Swanson and Logan Seavey find themselves knotted up atop the points entering this Saturday’s 59th running of the Bettenhausen 100 at the Illinois State Fairgrounds dirt mile in Springfield.
It couldn’t really get much closer and the parallels between the two drivers’ 2022 seasons are staggering. Both drivers own three victories this season and both possess one runner-up finish apiece. Both have suffered only one DNF. Furthermore, both drivers’ worst finishes while still running at the finish is eighth.
However, Swanson has the tiebreaker in his back pocket at the moment with one third place result to his credit, that being the only difference in the closest title fight in series history.
Swanson has won the Bettenhausen 100 on three occasions in 2014, 2015 and one year ago in 2021. Seavey, meanwhile, has won each of the past three Silver Crown races on dirt this season at Port Royal, Du Quoin and Eldora, and is one short of tying the series record for consecutive victories on dirt — set by Jack Hewitt in 1986.
Not to mention that Swanson and Seavey swapped the lead during the 2021 Bettenhausen with the same two finishing first and second in the rain-shortened affair.
It sets up a rematch of the two after a similar fight from a year ago when Swanson led Seavey by 16 with two races to go. Seavey whittled the margin down to one heading into the finale, which Swanson dominated to give himself a 34-point cushion for the title at the final checkered.
The closest previous Silver Crown points battle with two races remaining on the season also involved Swanson. He led by a mere four points over Bobby East in 2012. East captured the title by a 12-point margin over Jerry Coons Jr. while Swanson fell to third in the final rundown.
In fact, nearly half of all the USAC Silver Crown championship tug-of-wars have seen the lead change hands throughout the final two races.
Jim McElreath held an 80-point edge over Don Hawley in the inaugural 1971 Silver Crown season, but it was George Snider who surged ahead of both drivers at the buzzer to win it all. A.J. Foyt did likewise in 1972 as did Al Unser in 1973 over Mario Andretti.
Billy Cassella ripped away Johnny Parsons’ chance at a USAC national title during the 1976 season finale while Pancho Carter overcame Gary Bettenhausen’s advantage down the stretch in 1978. To close out the decade, Bobby Olivero and Billy Vukovich flip-flopped their point throughout the last two rounds with Olivero ultimately taking top honors.
At the dawn of the 1980s, Gary B. got his revenge on Pancho from 1978 by nipping Pancho for the title in a rare November finale at the Terre Haute (Ind.) Action Track. Three drivers shared the lead over the last two events during the next two seasons with Larry Rice leapfrogging Jack Hewitt and Rich Vogler to become the first two-time Silver Crown champ in 1981.
Ken Schrader did the same in 1982, bypassing Bobby Olivero and Ron Shuman with the aid of Sheldon Kinser’s Ben Leyba-owned ride in the closer at Nazareth. So appreciative of the generous offer, Schrader named his own son after Sheldon.
Dave Blaney went winless throughout the 1984 campaign, but his consistency rose him to the top after trailing George Snider with two to go. Johnny Parsons was heartbroken again in 1989 when dirt mile master Chuck Gurney surpassed him in the waning moments of the season to score his only crown.
Jimmy Sills’ bid to repeat as champion in 1991 came up short as a young upstart named Jeff Gordon blitzed past to earn himself a big car title before going on to NASCAR legend status. Steve Butler overcame leads by both Sills and Jeff Swindell during the final two races by winning the final round at Eldora to eke out a seven-point margin of triumph. Mike Bliss made a miraculous recovery in the last race of the 1993 season, overcoming Ron Shuman’s 39-point lead to win the points by two, marking the closest final points difference in series history.
That record two-point gap was tied two years later in 1995 when Tony Stewart came out of nowhere when the championship race was thought to be a two-horse tussle between Dave Darland and Jack Hewitt who were separated by eight going into the last round.
Stewart, down by 155, was nearly perfect as both Darland and Hewitt experienced trouble and dropped out early. Stewart finished second and completed another leg of his miraculous USAC Triple Crown season with a two-point advantage.
Kenny Irwin Jr. led Jimmy Sills by 138 going into the 1996 finale in Del Mar, California.
The worst-case scenario occurred for Irwin who experienced a flat tire on the last lap while firmly in position to win the championship. In the ensuing moments, Irwin tangled with another car and hit the wall all while Sills raced to the win and the title in one fell swoop.
Jason Leffler lurked all year long but didn’t get by Brian Tyler until the Gateway finale in 1998, reigning on top in a 16-point contest. Tracy Hines overcame Dave Darland in 2000 while Tyler again came up just short of an elusive title in 2006 behind Bud Kaeding.
Kaeding found himself on the other side of the equation in 2010 when Levi Jones trailed by 41 with two to go. Jones closed the interval to one entering the capper at Toledo, having to finish only a single position ahead of Kaeding. Jones wound up seventh and Kaeding eighth in the feature finishing order with the pair separated by two points when all was tallied up.
After coming from behind to win it all in 2012, Bobby East repeated his feat in 2013 as, for the second year in a row, East overcame a nine-point difference with two races remaining to score by a margin of six. Chris Windom came back to deny Swanson’s bid for a third-straight championship in 2016 as he erased Swanson’s 13-point lead with a pair of races to go, winning by five at the end.
In 2020, on a mid-October afternoon at the Illinois State Fairgrounds, just like this Saturday’s race will be, Justin Grant closed out his first Silver Crown championship. He shaved away Swanson’s lead with two races left, then pounced late to finish the season on a strong note with a championship in his hand.