HAUBSTADT, Ind. — Kyle Cummins continued his mastery of Tri-State Speedway, racing from 11^th on the grid to win Saturday night’s Spring Showdown that was co-sanctioned by the USAC AMSOIL National Sprint Car Series and the Midwest Sprint Car Series.

His sixth career USAC victory at Tri-State made him the winningest USAC Sprint Car driver at Tri-State, breaking a three-way tie he had held with Kevin Thomas Jr. and Daron Clayton at five.

Six of Cummins’ 10 career USAC AMSOIL National Sprint Car victories have come at the Haubstadt, Ind. track.

Cummins’ journey entailed continuous alterations, trials and errors and improvements on the car throughout the course of the evening following qualifying, the heat race, and even prompted a well-placed phone call to his father, Mark, a sprint car hero himself at Tri-State during the decades of the 1980s and 1990s.

“I didn’t know if we had a shot or not,” Cummins admitted. “At the beginning of the night, we had a mag going bad, and my team kept working and working and working. Every time we came in, we kept trying something, trying something, and I even called my dad at home, and he came down right after qualifying. Once he made it here, we got everything switched up.”

Polesitter Chase Stockon came out with a prominent bit of mental fire after his all-time record streak of 324 consecutive USAC National Sprint Car feature starts was snapped the previous night at Bloomington Speedway.

Stockon led the opening five laps while team manager and on-track teammate Kent Schmidt rallied to second and began to challenge him for the race lead. Meanwhile, fifth-starting Jadon Rogers hustled his way up into the thick of the battle and, ultimately, worked his way underneath Stockon to gain the top spot on lap six.

Rogers was wheeling a car for the very same Randy Edwards owned team that was victorious in the most recent Spring Showdown in 2020 with first-time winner Stephen Schnapf, a feat Rogers was hoping to repeat on this night.

By mid-race, Rogers had opened up a 4.5-second lead as he aggressively attacked his way through lapped traffic to provide himself a healthy advantage over Stockon and the steadily emerging Cummins who had suddenly entered the top five.

Despite adaptively acclimating himself to his current situation amid the thick of traffic, in theory, the successive pair of cautions just after midway effectively provided Cummins an opportunity to catch up, settle in, regroup, and gain more positions without the hindrance of traffic thrust into his sight.

On the 21st lap, Cummins paced his way by Stockon for the second position, and just moments later, a yellow fell for the spinning duo of Paul Nienhiser and Chet Williams in between turns one and two.

Rogers couldn’t afford to make a mistake on the ensuing restart with nine laps remaining, as he rode the high line and Cummins displayed the entirety of his car just a smidge to the left of Rogers field of vision. Rogers was pretty much flawless over the next five laps as Cummins wasn’t able to make much headway on the bottom.

With four laps remaining, the car of Carson Short slowed dramatically in front of the leaders on the front straightaway to bring out the yellow flag, setting up one final shot and one final opportunity for Cummins to give it a go.

“When I got to second, I felt pretty good on the bottom, and then Jadon stepped it up another gear, and went around the top and I wasn’t going to catch him,” Cummins revealed. “As soon as the yellow happened, I moved the shocks a little bit and I just knew I had to blaze her in there, and just keep my momentum up.”

Cummins didn’t waste a second of his time blazing it in there on the lap-27 restart, sliding up in front of Rogers in turn one soon after the drop of the green. Rogers quickly countered and tossed his machine to the bottom of turn three, sliding by Cummins in the process, but leaving room for Cummins to race back by underneath to reassume the position and never relent over the final three laps, ultimately stretching his lead out to 1.323 seconds at the finish line.

“That was probably one of my most exciting wins down here in a long time because I had to battle, I had to change my line, run the top, run the bottom, I actually had to pull some tear-offs tonight. All in all, just an unbelievable night,” an ecstatic Cummins stated in victory lane.

Rogers equaled his best career USAC National Sprint Car finish of second in his Randy Edwards/Edwards Concrete Construction – Auto Wheel & Rim – Engler Machine/DRC/SPEC Chevy.

Stockon, Justin Grant and Brady Bacon rounded out the top five.

To see full results, turn to the next page.