You almost had to do a double take when you took a glance at the all-time feature win list at Eldora Speedway. Kevin Thomas Jr. was nowhere to be found.

Yet, as hard as it was to believe, KTJ had never won a feature event in his career at the famed 1/2-mile dirt oval located in Rossburg, Ohio.

On Thursday night, the owner of 60 career USAC national wins got to make the long awaited trip up the ramp to victory lane in what was his 48th career USAC main event appearance at The Big E.

At long last, KTJ’s time had come to fruition as he ripped around the outside of racelong leader Hayden Reinbold in the fourth turn with four laps remaining to get the elusive triumph he had been chasing after dating back to his Eldora debut in 2009.

On this one, he put the finishing touches on a special breakthrough. At last, Kevin Thomas Jr. was an Eldora winner.

“Man, you have no idea,” Thomas exclaimed. “This place has had my number for, literally, ever. We’ve had good runs here, but we’ve never been able to finish it off.”

The Cullman, Alabama native’s Eldora resume is quite accomplished, but almost torturous. He had finished as the runner-up in five different races at Eldora, including both USAC NOS Energy Drink Midget National Championship events at the track in 2025.

That goes along with a pair of USAC Silver Crown runner-up results at Eldora in 2018 and 2019, plus a USAC AMSOIL Sprint Car National Championship finish of second in 2024. Toss in a number of thirds, fourths, and fifths, which brought his USAC career total to 19 top five finishes without a single victory to highlight it all prior to Thursday’s event.

Starting third on the grid for the 25-lapper, Thomas guided his 4 Kings Racing/Purple Heart Foundation – AccroSeal – Metalloid1 – AccroLube/LynK/Stanton SR-11x to the front for his third series win of the year as well as the ninth of his career, which ties him for 82nd place all-time alongside Billy Boat, Chad Boat, Tony Elliott, and Chuck Gurney.

“This 4 Kings number 14 was an absolute rocket,” Thomas praised. “Matt (Westfall), Phil (Westfall), (Jakeb Boxell), and everybody that brings these cars to the racetrack, they always bring a good hot rod. I’m very fortunate to be able to drive for those guys and I’m happy for the Purple Heart Foundation, Rex (Turner), Fred (Edwards), and the whole crew. To finally to be up here, it’s pretty special.”

For the initial 21 laps, it was Reinbold who was in total control of the race. Interestingly, the tables were turned from the 2025 Thursday race in which Reinbold charged past Thomas on lap eight, then led the remaining 18 laps en route to victory while Thomas followed him across the stripe in the second position.

Early on, Thomas worked around the high side of Kale Drake to move into the second spot on lap nine. By lap 20, Thomas had completely crossed out Reinbold’s 1.5 second lead. Now, Thomas was right on Reinbold’s tail tank.

Reinbold dove low into turn one on the 20th lap and nearly collided with the lapped car of Cord Kisthardt. Thomas looked high and low, low and high, and every which way around Reinbold and was able to pull even with him on both sides on laps 20 and 21. Twenty two proved to be the catch for KTJ as he followed his instincts with some straightforward self-advice.

“Just drive the balls off of it, really,” Thomas put it succinctly. “This place was treacherous tonight, and in a midget, it’s exaggerated too. You’re hitting frame rails, and you’re doing all kinds of wild stuff, and you don’t got a lot of horsepower. So, it’s very key to keep your momentum up and pick the correct lines whenever you get to lap traffic.”

On the 22nd lap, Thomas had a major run to the outside of Reinbold on the back straightaway as they closed in on the 15th place running car of Adam Taylor. As Reinbold pulled even to the inside of Taylor, Reinbold’s car slipped and drifted up the racetrack. Thomas’ momentum was the x-factor as he flat-footed it around the outside of Reinbold off turn four to edge ahead, then turned down under Taylor entering the first turn moments later to put a buffer between himself and the rest of the field.

“I don’t think I would have necessarily gotten to Hayden in that scenario without lap traffic,” Thomas admitted. “Wide open is wide open here and we both run Stanton engines and they run really good. I don’t know if catching him was in the cards there, but sometimes being second when you get there is good because you can see where he killed speed at or where he didn’t and you can navigate those lapped cars just a little bit better.”

Just as Thomas quickly opened up his advantage, the action came to a halt when Jadon Rogers (15th) slowed on the back straightaway to bring out the caution on lap 24, thus, bunching up the field for a green-white-checkered restart. Despite that, for KTJ, it was his problem-free philosophy. It was hakuna matata.

“Once we got out front, it wasn’t very long,” Thomas recalled. “I think it was like a couple laps and then we had that green white checkered. Our stuff is notorious for restarting really well. So, I felt confident and just kind of went up and got my momentum up for about a lap and a half and finally won one of these here.”

Thomas finished off the final chapter of the race with a 0.885 second margin of victory. Meanwhile, Justin Grant raced by Reinbold on the final lap to get second while Reinbold rounded out the podium in third. Daison Pursley took fourth while KTJ’s 4 Kings teammate Jakeb Boxell collected a fifth place finish.

Reinbold nearly repeated his Thursday night Eldora win from a year ago. His 21 laps led during the 25-lap main were the most, and thus, he was the recipient of the K & N Filters Clean Air Award for his efforts.

This Thursday night wasn’t very kind to Logan Seavey and Abacus Racing. Engine issues in hot laps derailed their night early on. But after borrowing an engine from 4 Kings Racing, they tagged the tail of the feature. From there, Seavey made a valiant effort to advance from 20th to 10th to earn Rod End Supply Hard Charger honors.

Jacob Denney was the evening’s LearnLab Fast Qualifier, topping the session at with a lap of 16.060 seconds, which was the fastest single lap by a USAC National Midget at Eldora since Danny Stratton’s 15.902 run in 2005, 21 years ago!

USAC NOS ENERGY DRINK MIDGET NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP RACE RESULTS: September 24, 2026 – Eldora Speedway – Rossburg, Ohio – 1/2-Mile Dirt Oval – BeFour the Crowns

LEARNLAB QUALIFYING: 1. Jacob Denney, 67, Kunz/Curb-Agajanian-16.060; 2. Daison Pursley, 86, CBI-16.132; 3. Jakeb Boxell, 54, 4 Kings-16.150; 4. Kevin Thomas Jr., 14, 4 Kings-16.151; 5. Kale Drake, 4, RMS-16.196; 6. Hayden Reinbold, 19AZ, Reinbold-Underwood-16.216; 7. Gavin Miller, 97, Kunz/Curb-Agajanian-16.253; 8. Gunnar Setser, 43, Arnold-16.273; 9. Justin Grant, 87, CBI-16.296; 10. Colton Robinson, 67K, Kunz/Curb-Agajanian-16.308; 11. Mack Leopard, 40L, McDermand-16.455; 12. Kyle Jones, 7TX, Engler-16.534; 13. Brecken Reese, 20Q, Reese-16.620; 14. Jadon Rogers, 4p, Binks-16.621; 15. Luke Wackerlin, 7w, Guithues-16.837; 16. Adam Taylor, 7T, ATM-16.855; 17. Bradley Cox, 45, Mason-16.900; 18. Devon Dobie, 23D, Dobie-17.065; 19. Cord Kisthardt, 21K, Kisthardt-17.605; 20. Chelby Hinton, 4B, Klatt-NT; 21. Logan Seavey, 57, Abacus-NT; 22. Sheldon Males, 4m, Males-NT.

K1 RACEGEAR FIRST HEAT: (8 laps, all transfer to the feature, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Brecken Reese (2), 2. Gavin Miller (4), 3. Jacob Denney (6), 4. Colton Robinson (3), 5. Kevin Thomas Jr. (5), 6. Cord Kisthardt (7), 7. Adam Taylor (1). 2:12.303

TJ FORGED SECOND HEAT: (8 laps, all transfer to the feature, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Daison Pursley (6), 2. Gunnar Setser (4), 3. Kale Drake (5), 4. Jadon Rogers (2), 5. Bradley Cox (1), 6. Mack Leopard (3). 2:13.713

K & N FILTERS THIRD HEAT: (8 laps, all transfer to the feature, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Justin Grant (4), 2. Kyle Jones (3), 3. Hayden Reinbold (5), 4. Jakeb Boxell (6), 5. Luke Wackerlin (2), 6. Devon Dobie (1). 2:10.814

FEATURE: (25 laps, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Kevin Thomas Jr. (3), 2. Justin Grant (7), 3. Hayden Reinbold (1), 4. Daison Pursley (5), 5. Jakeb Boxell (4), 6. Jacob Denney (6), 7. Gunnar Setser (10), 8. Brecken Reese (8), 9. Kale Drake (2), 10. Logan Seavey (20), 11. Mack Leopard (12), 12. Kyle Jones (13), 13. Colton Robinson (11), 14. Gavin Miller (9), 15. Adam Taylor (19), 16. Luke Wackerlin (15), 17. Cord Kisthardt (17), 18. Jadon Rogers (14), 19. Bradley Cox (16), 20. Devon Dobie (18). NT

FEATURE LAP LEADERS: Laps 1-21 Hayden Reinbold, Laps 22-25 Kevin Thomas Jr.

USAC NOS ENERGY DRINK MIDGET NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS: 1-Jacob Denney-1063, 2-Kevin Thomas Jr.-1002, 3-Justin Grant-942, 4-Gavin Miller-927, 5-Jakeb Boxell-898, 6-Kale Drake-892, 7-Hayden Reinbold-741, 8-Cannon McIntosh-712, 9-Brecken Reese-708, 10-Colton Robinson-651.

USAC PARALLAX GROUP NATIONAL PASSING MASTER POINTS: 1-Kevin Thomas Jr.-139, 2-Justin Grant-134, 3-Hayden Reinbold-133, 4-Robert Ballou-115, 5-Briggs Danner-108, 6-Cale Coons-108, 7-Jacob Denney-102, 8-Chase Stockon-98, 9-Jake Swanson-91, 10-Kyle Cummins-83.

NEXT USAC NOS ENERGY DRINK MIDGET NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP RACE: September 26, 2026 – Eldora Speedway – Rossburg, Ohio – 1/2-Mile Dirt Oval – 44th 4-Crown Nationals Presented by NKTELCO

CONTINGENCY AWARD WINNERS:

Dirt Draft Hot Laps Fastest Driver: Logan Seavey (16.004)

LearnLab Fast Qualifier: Jacob Denney (16.060)

K1 RaceGear First Heat Winner: Brecken Reese

TJ Forged Second Heat Winner: Daison Pursley

K & N Filters Third Heat Winner: Justin Grant

K & N Filters Clean Air Award: Hayden Reinbold (21 laps led)

Rod End Supply Hard Charger: Logan Seavey (20th to 10th)

NEXT: Deja Danner! Briggs Danner Repeats Thursday Night USAC Sprint Car Win At Eldora