What Sam Seawright Hopes To Gain From First Illinois Trip

The rest of Illinois Speedweek at Lincoln, Farmer City and Fairbury will offer Seawright his first true taste of Illinois black dirt. He’s embracing the challenge and, while there will be a learning curve on the unfamiliar surface, believes his driving style may translate better than expected.

Seawright doesn’t see himself as the prototypical Southeastern driver known for being straight and smooth, but instead is more aggressive, on-the-offense by nature.

“I feel like I'm always a little bit too aggressive at home,” Seawright said. “That’s what we've always thought, like on them slicker, like red-dirt tracks and stuff, I don't have anything left about 10 laps into the race because I'm up there trying to make something happen and you just can't, you know? I may make myself look like an idiot or we may turn some heads. I don't know. We'll just see.

“I feel like there'll be a big learning curve as far as how much the track changes throughout the night. Like, if you go out there and set fast time, that don't really mean anything because the track changes a lot and I don't know what adjustments it takes to keep the car good throughout the night here, but maybe we can make some good guesses and, you know, make it work.”

What is familiar for Seawright this week — and this year — is his crew. Seawright’s basically taken his crew from his family operation — fourth-year crew chief Michael Page and 11th-year tire specialist Donny Walker — and segued that over to the Coltman Farms Racing operation. Fellow Coltman Farms driving teammate Luke Morey of Zeeland, Mich., has tagged along this week on the crew as well.

Twice Seawright has contended for his first victory with the Maysville, Ga.-based Coltman Farms Racing team he joined in February. Seawright finished second to Hudson O’Neal in March 22’s Hunt the Front Super Dirt Series feature at Talladega Short Track in Eastaboga, Ala. In April 2’s Schaeffer's Spring Nationals event at I-75 Raceway in Sweetwater, Tenn., Seawright finished third behind Dale McDowell and O’Neal. Overall, he has two top-five runs and seven top-10 finishes in 21 starts with the team. His lone 2026 victory came at Talladega's Ice Bowl in January.

“Yeah, I'm just here because of Brett Coltman,” Seawright said. “We’ve never come this way this far to race just because it's always costing so much to get here. And without him, no, we wouldn't be here and just want to say thanks to him for the opportunity for sure. … It takes a lot to get here. It takes a lot to go anywhere nowadays, though, going up and down the road with these trucks and all that.”

What would make a successful trip to Illinois for Seawright? Qualifying for features? Top-10 finishes? More than that, he says. Fleshing out a notebook that’ll better suit him for future trips to Illinois is just as, if not more, important than sheer results.

“We plan on winning every night, but you have to be realistic, too,” he said. “I’ve never been to none of these places. So if we just learn a lot and get a lot of laps and like I said, I want to win, but if we can get some top-fives and just be up there in the running and make it look like we belong here, that's all I really care about.

“I feel like anything outside of winning, if I didn't come to win, I would just sat at home. I mean, my ultimate goal is to win, but if we can just, like I said, just get good notes for this kind of dirt and just be competitive, that’s all I really care about.”

Seawright could be preparing for a rookie campaign on the World of Outlaws circuit next year, too. So if he and the Coltman Farms team pull the trigger on that pursuit, this week will give him at least a starting reference point for how to approach the hallmark Midwest black dirt.

“We don't really know. It's just kind of all up in the air,” Seawright said. “We’ll see how things go, but that's the reason we're coming to some of these places like this just to kind get notes for this kind of dirt. That way, because, you know, a lot of them tracks are black dirt and that style of racing. So we just wanted to come, and that way if we do run the Outlaws, it's not so much of a learning curve.”