Roahrig Wins 500 Sprint Car Tour Finale, Swanson Seals Title at IRP

Tyler Roahrig flexed his muscle to win the yourBIGplans.com 500 Sprint Car Tour season finale at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park on Saturday, while Kody Swanson capped off a championship season with a runner-up finish.

With the win, Roahrig has now won six consecutive 500 Sprint Car Tour contests at IRP. Roahrig battled side-by-side with Swanson multiple times throughout the race, including after the final restart of the race on lap 21. Each time, Roahrig stormed past Swanson and pulled away, ultimately winning Saturday's 40-lap contest by nearly three seconds.

It is Roahrig's second win of the 500 Sprint Car Tour season after scoring a victory at Berlin Raceway in August. However, he has not had the finishes he hoped for throughout the season, including a tumble that sidelined him from the 78th Unified Group Services Little 500 in May and had a significant impact on his year.

"We've had steering issues ever since we tangled with a car four laps down at the Little 500," said Roahrig. "It's been kind of a grueling year for us, really. Even today, we battled a few things. We made one change before the race, and it really came to life."

Roahrig first built an advantage of several seconds before a caution at lap 20. On the ensuing restart, several cars were sidelined in a multi-car incident.

After a lengthy red flag to clean up that incident, Swanson jumped back to the lead on the double-file restart. Undeterred, Roahrig kept the pressure on Swanson and completed a pass to Swanson's inside on lap 26.

"Kody made me look pretty bad on the restart there. Good, clean, hard racing with him there. Shame to see everyone get torn up there on that one restart."

Swanson held off Jackson Macenko to finish second, wrapping up his third 500 Sprint Car Tour championship. Swanson won twice finished on the podium in all six 500 Sprint Car Tour events this season, with a worst finish of third at Winchester Speedway.

"It sure means a lot to put a whole year together like that," said Swanson. "It doesn't happen without great people behind you, supporting the whole thing to make it happen. I really appreciate Nick Bohanon for owning this thing, Frank and Dugan for all their effort to do it.

"It really started out with another partnership with Doran Racing, running the Glen Niebel Classic at Anderson and preparing for the Little 500. That got our year started, and then we picked up with these guys from June on.

"Never [finished] worse than third, and got a few wins there in the middle. I sure appreciate the effort they put in all year long to come out and try to compete for these."

Swanson tipped his cap to Roahrig and his team on their performance on Saturday at IRP.

"Tyler does a great job, him and his team. They put it on us again. What a great racer, he can race me back clean like that. It's a double-file restart, the way I was able to get the lead back. He sure proved he was plenty fast enough to get the job done. Hopefully, we put on a little bit of a show there while we were wrestling for it.

"He was just able to roll the center of the corner better than me. This time, I was finally able to stay along enough outside of him. Normally, he blows right by us so fast, you can't even tell. Hey, maybe we're making progress. It's the effort of the team to keep trying to be better."

Macenko finished third, with Dakoda Armstrong and Anthony Nocella rounding out the top five.

-Photo credit: Koty Geyer

500 Sprint Car Tour at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park Unofficial Results