Richie Murray
JUNE 3, 2025
Indianapolis, Indiana (June 3, 2025)………All year long, Kale Drake has displayed an unprecedented passing prowess that has put him atop USAC’s passing master standings.
During Tuesday night’s 21st annual USAC Indiana Midget Week opener at Circle City Raceway’s, Drake’s passing prowess took the ninth place starting Drake to victory lane.
In a race which saw the lead exchange hands six different times among three drivers, Drake (Collinsville, Oklahoma) broke through with the winning move around Kevin Thomas Jr. with six laps remaining to earn his first career Indiana Midget Week win, his second straight USAC NOS Energy Drink Midget National Championship victory and his third career series victory overall.
Drake, whose 120 passes in USAC national feature events in 2025 is a staggering 66 more positions advanced than anyone else, leads the season long Parallax Group Passing Master standings. Starting inside row five, Drake needed to dig deep to get to the front once more in his Keith Kunz-Curb-Agajanian Motorsports/Eibach – TRD – Toyota – Mobil 1/LynK/Speedway Toyota.
In the meantime, pole sitter Logan Seavey sprinted out to the lead where he’d remain for the initial 18 circuits of the 30-lap feature. On the ninth lap, 10th running Gunnar Setser flipped upside down in turn two to bring out the only red flag of the night. Setser was able to walk away while Cannon McIntosh, second in series points, also dropped out, finishing 25th in the 25-car field.
When action resumed, Daison Pursley slid past Seavey in turns one and two on the 10th lap. Seavey astutely cut back under to reassume the lead, then fended off another Pursley attack in turns three and four to lead the lap by a wheel. Karter Sarff circled the waters, then pounced on lap 16 to take second from Pursley on lap 16.
Suddenly, it was a swarm of six different cars all under a blanket as fifth starting Kevin Thomas Jr. rolled the bottom to fourth on lap 16, to third on lap 17, to second on lap 18 and to the lead on lap 19 in three-wide fashion with himself on the low line, Drake in the middle and Seavey on the outside.
Drake had surged from sixth to second in a five-lap span between laps 16-20, and after a somewhat stagnant start, he had surprised the field with his presence at the front, even himself!
“I didn’t think we were going to have anything for them,” Drake stated. “Early on in that race, we were struggling and at a standstill really. I could pounce on them when they made a mistake, but other than that, I really didn’t have speed. When I stumbled upon that line, it worked out really well for us.”
“That” line involved bouncing his right rear tire off the outside wall in turns one and two, then diamonding his path from the top of turn three to the bottom of turn four. Drake to that maneuver to the lead past Thomas on lap 21 and the duel was on. Thomas retook the top spot on lap 22 before Drake took it back on the 23rd lap. Thomas regained the lead on lap 24, but Drake fought back to reach the top once more on lap 25 around the outside in turn four.
“I accidentally did that move in one and two and kind of gained on the guys ahead of me, and I was like, ‘whew! If we can replicate that, we’re going to be hard to beat,’” Drake revealed. “Once I made it happen, we were able to pick our way right through them. They were hanging really bad off the exit, so I could make the diamond line work. I was able to drive it into the corner so hard, thanks to having such a good racecar. I really just had to get it turned and come down the hill. There’s not much to lean on up there and it’s really slick. You’ve got to come up with unique lines like that.”
Despite reaching lapped traffic during the final two laps, Drake was able to extend his lead over Thomas in the final stages, leading the final six laps to win by a 1.265 second margin over Thomas, Sarff and Pursley with Seavey rounding out the top-five.
Furthermore, Drake became the first driver to win and also grab hard charger honors in USAC National Midget competition this season, advancing eight positions to score his second straight feature victory with the series after also winning on May 18 at Missouri’s Sweet Springs Motorsports Complex in similarly dramatic fashion.
“They were racing really hard in front of me, so it slowed them all down, and it really opened the door for me,” Drake explained. “To grab another Rod End Supply Hard Charger is unreal. We’ve passed so many racecars this year, and I think that’s just a testament to the racecars I’ve had the pleasure of sitting in. It just makes my job really easy. If only I could just start my night off a little better. But it doesn’t seem to drag us down too bad.”
It was exactly 7 years ago to the day that Kevin Thomas Jr. captured his lone USAC Indiana Midget Week win at Kokomo Speedway in 2018. Seven years later, to the day, Thomas nearly pulled off his second IMW triumph, leading three different times for a total of four laps en route to a second place finish.
Karter Sarff made an impressive Indiana Midget Week debut, finishing with a career best USAC National Midget result of third to earn the Inferno Armor Fire Move of the Night.
Justin Grant earned his 12th career USAC National Midget Honest Abe Roofing Fast Qualifying time, which tied him for 49th place on the all-time list alongside Cannon McIntosh, Don Meacham, Larry Rice and Josh Wise. It was also the fifth fast time of Grant's Indiana Midget Week career, tying him for second most all-time with Bryan Clauson.