Nestled near the crevice where the three Midwest states of Indiana, Illinois and Kentucky meet, Tri-State Speedway stands proud and tall, where it has welcomed race fans for more than a half century, since its grand opening in 1957.

This Saturday night, the Tri-State area is where the USAC AMSOIL Sprint Car National Championship and the Midwest Sprint Car Series converge for the 10th running of the Spring Showdown.

It’s slated to be the 52nd USAC National Sprint Car event held at the track since the series debuted on its quarter-mile confines in 1983.

A spectacularly talented field is set for Saturday’s southern Indiana run, and while we’re here, let’s run through six storylines we’ll be watching at the 2023 Spring Showdown.

KTJ & Cummins Wage Their War At The Top

On the track, there’s been little separation when it comes to Kevin Thomas Jr. and Kyle Cummins at Tri-State Speedway, and the same goes for the stat chart. 

Both drivers are tied for the all-time lead in USAC National Sprint Car feature victories at Tri-State with six apiece, and each will try to top each other for the record Saturday night.

Thomas (Cullman, Alabama) is the lone two-time winner of the Spring Showdown, which began back in 2012. 

KTJ won the event in both 2013 and 2018, and if you’re a fan of numerology, every five years seems to be the trend thus far for him at this event.

Meanwhile, Cummins (Princeton, Indiana) has been synonymous with success at Tri-State, and he finally racked up his first victory in the Spring Showdown with a pass for the lead just four laps from the finish line during the most recent running of the event in 2021.

Taming Tricky Tri-State

For many, it can take several trials before a driver finally gets the hang of Tri-State Speedway. 

It’s fast, it’s paper-clippy in nature and it takes a different kind of knack to get the car and driver dialed in for success than it might in other places.

Along with Thomas and Cummins, Brady Bacon and Chase Stockon are among the individuals vying to repeat their Spring Showdown success from years earlier.

Bacon (Broken Arrow, Oklahoms) won the event in 2015. He also owns a runner-up result in 2014 and was fifth in 2021. 

Stockon, from nearby Fort Branch, Indiana, collected the Spring Showdown victory a year after Bacon’s in 2016 and also possesses a pair of thirds in 2013 and 2021, plus a pair of fifths in 2012 and 2015.

Knowin’ It Like The Back Of Their Hands

For Cummins, Stockon and Brady Short, Tri-State Speedway is home in more ways than one. 

Cummins and Stockon both reside within a stone’s throw of the track, while Short routinely makes the relatively short southern Indiana jaunt to The Class Track. This trio has found the edge to succeed regularly at TSS over much of the past two decades.

Cummins owns a record 34 MSCS wins, the majority of which have come at Tri-State, while both Short and Stockon reside inside the top 5 of MSCS’s all-time win list. 

Cummins’ five MSCS titles – 2007, 2008, 2009, 2014 and 2019 – are a record, while Short has grabbed four in 2011, 2015, 2016 and 2017. Stockon has won each of the last three – 2020, 2021 and 2022.

Though they often have been on the road with USAC throughout much of their careers, their MSCS success is unparalleled. Their Tri-State USAC prowess is staggering, too, with the three possessing practically 20% of all USAC Sprint wins at the track.

Jadon & The Footstep Followers

During his most recent run with the series at Tri-State Speedway last fall in the Haubstadt Hustler, Jadon Rogers (Worthington, Indiana) broke through for his much-anticipated first career USAC National Sprint Car victory. This came after finishing as the runner-up in the most recent edition of the Spring Showdown in 2021.

It brings to mind a number of other possible first-time USAC National winners who could emerge this Saturday. 

Daison Pursley (Locust Grove, Oklahoma) has won with USAC this year during a non-points special event at Florida’s Volusia Speedway Park in February. 

However, Pursley, this year’s leading contender for Rookie of the Year, aims to put one in the win column during a full USAC points race, and what better place to do it than Tri-State, where he once finished as the runner-up in an MSCS show and earned his first career top-10 result with the USAC Sprints, both in 2021?

Same goes for Carson Garrett (Littleton, Colorado), who finished third in MSCS points for 2022 and was named the series’ 2021 Rookie of the Year. 

He has been solid in his outings with USAC in 2023 and has numerous laps around Tri-State, where he’s been a regular for the past two-plus seasons.

Critter Malone (Pittsboro, Indiana) would be a highly popular winner on Saturday. 

He has been a winner on the MSCS tour at Tri-State in each of the past two seasons and regularly has been fast and impressive any time he steps foot at Tri-State, also finishing fourth with USAC in late 2020. 

His most recent USAC win came in the National Midget ranks back in 2002 at Route 66 Raceway in Joliet, Illinois.

The Bloomington/Tri-State Double

Tri-State caps a weekend double that first brings the USAC National Sprints to Bloomington (Indiana) Speedway 24 hours earlier on Friday night.

The Bloomington/Tri-State double has become a fixture for the series, with the two tracks contesting events on consecutive nights 19 times since 2006. Not a single driver has swept both events in the same weekend.

Fourteen drivers have triumphed at both tracks in their USAC Sprint careers: Bacon, Cummins, Dave Darland, Jay Drake, Tony Elliott, Tracy Hines, Rick Hood, Cory Kruseman, Hunter Schuerenberg, Brady Short, Jon Stanbrough, Thomas, Chris Windom and J.J. Yeley.

Furthermore, only three individuals have won at both tracks within the same season: Yeley (2003), Thomas (2017 & 2021) and Darland (2018). 

Only one of those won at each place within the same week (Yeley), but none have done so within the confines of the same weekend.

One driver in this weekend’s lineup owns a USAC Sprint win at Bloomington but is still on the hunt to complete the task with a follow-up USAC triumph at Tri-State, that being 2019 USAC National Sprint Car champ C.J. Leary (Greenfield, Indiana).

A First “First” At The Spring Showdown

The list of drivers who haven’t won the Spring Showdown in their careers is just about as impressive as the scroll of individuals who have. 

There’s a slew of series champions, feature winners and track titlists who are champing at the bit (not chomping – that’s grammatically incorrect) to change that fact come Saturday, namely Ballou, Justin Grant, Thomas Meseraull and Short, all of whom have won USAC National features at Tri-State in their careers.

Ballou (Rocklin, California), a two-time USAC Sprint winner at TSS in 2014 and 2022, has come close to winning the Spring Showdown, finishing second on three occasions – in 2013, once more during his 2015 championship season and again in 2020.

Grant (Ione, California) has finished the Spring Showdown inside the top 5 in each of his last four starts – third in 2017, fifth in 2018, fifth in 2020 and fourth in 2021. Grant, the reigning USAC National Sprint Car champ, was a TSS USAC Sprint victor in the summer of 2022.

Meseraull (San Jose, California) has made a splash as the winningest USAC National Midget driver at Tri-State with three victories, all of which have come in the past three seasons. 

He aims to improve upon his Spring Showdown best thus far, a ninth in 2016. 

Likewise for Jason McDougal, who won a USAC National Midget feature at Tri-State in 2019 and won with MSCS at Tri-State in 2022. He shoots for his first Spring Showdown start on Saturday.

Furthermore, Short (Bedford, Indiana) has never finished outside of the top 10 in any of his eight previous Spring Showdown starts, putting together an incredible string of consistency – sixth in 2012, fourth in 2013, fifth in 2014, fourth in 2015, eighth in 2016, fourth in 2017 and 10th in 2020.

Additionally, a number of other USAC regulars are seeking their first turn at chalking up a USAC triumph at Tri-State. 

Leary (Greenfield, Indiana) won four times at TSS with MSCS in 2017-2018, and the 2019 USAC Sprint king took the runner-up spot in the 2018 Spring Showdown.

Mitchel Moles (Raisin City, California) will take in his first Spring Showdown experience this weekend, after timing in quickest during qualifying last summer at TSS and collecting three combined top 10s at the track in 2022 between his appearances with the USAC Sprints and USAC NOS Energy Drink Midget National Championship.

Series winners Emerson Axsom (Franklin, Indiana) and Matt Westfall (Pleasant Hill, Ohio) will be making their Spring Showdown debuts, while Sutter, California’s Logan Seavey (third in 2018), Anaheim, California’s Jake Swanson (11th in 2021) and Terre Haute, Indiana’s Brandon Mattox (13th in 2018 & 2020) make their return to the event this weekend.

Race Details

Tri-State Speedway in Haubstadt, Indiana, will host the 10th running of the Spring Showdown this Saturday at its 1/4-mile, high-banked dirt oval, and it culminates with a 30-lap, $5,000-to-win feature event for USAC and MSCS.

The Spring Showdown features the USAC AMSOIL Sprint Car National Championship (co-sanctioned by the Midwest Sprint Car Series) as well as the Midwest Mini Sprint Association.

Pits will open at 3 p.m. Central, the grandstands will open at 4 p.m. and the drivers’ meeting will be at 5:15 p.m. Cars will get on track at 6 p.m., followed immediately by qualifying and racing.

Adult general admission tickets are $25, students (ages 13-18) $20 & children 12 and under free. Pit passes are $30 (all ages).

If you’re unable to make it to the track, you may also watch this Saturday’s event LIVE on FloRacing.