Seavey Scores Second Straight Golden Driller at Chili Bowl Nationals

It was going to take more than an illness to keep Logan Seavey from leaving his mark on racing history Saturday night at the Tulsa Expo Center.

Seavey became a two-time winner of the Chili Bowl Nationals on Saturday night, holding off Buddy Kofoid to join the list of multi-time winners of the event.

Earlier in the week, Seavey had been under the weather. That didn't stop him from putting in an impressive showing all week long, winning Monday's O'Reilly Auto Parts Invitational Race of Champions as well as his Qualifying Night on Friday.

“It’s the Chili Bowl,” said Seavey in victory lane on the FloRacing broadcast. “You’ve got to do what you can to perform. I just can’t say enough about these guys giving me cars that can come here and win the biggest race of the year.

“I felt a lot better today after I got a little bit of sleep and was finally able to keep some food down. I knew all I needed to do was get some food in me. I felt great all day.”

Seavey joined Tony Stewart, Kyle Larson, Rico Abreu, Dan Boorse and Cory Kruseman on the list of two-time winners of the event. Only Sammy Swindell (five), Kevin Swindell (four) and Christopher Bell (three) have more victories in the marquee Midget event held every January.

Kevin Swindell, Seavey’s car owner, won all four of his Golden Drillers consecutively between 2010 and 2013. At the time, he was the first driver to score back-to-back wins in the event, only to string together four straight.

Abreu, Bell and Larson have since won consecutive Chili Bowls, and now Seavey can also add his name to that list.

“We’ve only ran [this car] a couple of times and won every time we’ve been here,” said Seavey. “That’s awesome. That’s why he built this car, to come here and win this race. To be the one doing it for him is so much fun.”

Seavey started on the front row and immediately jumped to the lead ahead of pole-sitter Buddy Kofoid. Officially, Seavey led all 55 laps of Saturday’s A Feature.

Briefly, Kofoid took the top spot during the first five laps of the race. However, the yellow flag flew for Steven Snyder, Jr. slowing to a stop on the race track, giving Seavey the lead again as the leader of the last completed green flag lap.

Adding some extra drama to the caution, Kofoid had to stop while officials replaced the transponder on his car, but he was allowed to maintain his spot in the running order.

“It probably saved my whole race,” admitted Seavey. “I knew we were going to get up [to the top] quick even after that start where he got in front of me.

“I did not think that was coming back to me. I caught a huge break, and it takes a couple of breaks sometimes to win these things.”

“I thought we had completed a whole lap,” said Kofoid. “They said my transponder wasn’t working. I was a little confused about that. I guess it wasn’t meant to be.”

Kofoid acknowledged that, even if he had been credited with the lead after the lap four caution, there was no guarantee he would have stayed ahead of Seavey.

“When you’re the leader, when it goes from running the cushion to running on the bottom, it is hard to gauge when that’s happening. You never know what’s going to happen, or if you’re going to find the rubber, hypothetically.”

Corey Day took the third position to round out the podium finishers. Daison Pursley charged from 20th in the feature lineup to a fourth-place finish, while Hank Davis completed the top five.

NASCAR Cup Series competitor Chase Briscoe was credited with 21st in the final running order. He had finished fifth in his B Feature to qualify for the main event, but ultimately fell out of the race after falling a lap down.

-Photo credit: Ryan Nuttleman

2024 CHILI BOWL NATIONALS A-FEATURE RESULTS