Montpelier Speedway
Southern interloper finds success on the Hell Tour
By Bryan Ault
Special to DirtonDirt
Sam Seawright (joshjamesartwork.com)
MONTPELIER, Ind. (July 7) — Changes of scenery can be productive for any profession. For folks with 9-to-5 jobs, going to work in the same office, working with the same people, and solving the same problems can be monotonous. Dirt Late Model racing is no different.
Getting out of one’s region, racing against different drivers at different tracks, gives any driver the chance to improve his craft, take home trophies and earn extra checks — and take the lessons learned and apply them to races closer to home. | RaceWire
Coltman Farms Racing driver Sam Seawright of Fort Payne, Ala. isn’t certain he’ll be able to take any notes from the Midwest and bring those lessons to the Southeast because of the varied track surfaces, but he does appreciate the change of scenery and he’s finding success on the 40-year-old circuit after joining it for its final two weeks.
“They're completely different than back at home,” the 22-year-old Seawright said of surfaces on the annual July grind. “There's not even one similarity, really. Maybe at (feature) time slowing down and like, running around the bottom, but other than that, nothing.”
He’s figured it out pretty well with a victory and five top-five finishes over his first eight eight starts, although he decided to save his equipment Tuesday at Montpelier Speedway because of rugged track conditions, parking after leading two laps and contending early in the 30-lapper won by Frank Heckenast Jr.
The tracks are “just way more slimy here all the time,” Seawright said before his Montpelier outing. “Kind of greasy and back at home, they can't get near as much water on it, so the track’s harder all the time we're there. It kind of fluffs up and throughout the night here, the grip comes back here where at home like, once the grip's gone, it's gone, it don't come back.”
It’s been an up-and-down season for Seawright, who stands sixth in the Hunt the Front Super Dirt Series point standings. He’s winless on the series with two top-fives through six races. But his first foray onto the Summer Nationals has been productive with a victory at Camden (Tenn.) Speedway — he became the tour’s first-ever Alabama winner —a runner-up finish at Farmington (Mo.) Empire Speedway and third-place finish Monday at Kankakee County Speedway in Kankakee, Ill.
His Summer Nationals success follows June's top-10 run at Dream XXXII at Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio, a major confidence boost. He sees the trip to Tony Stewart’s legendary half-mile oval as a turning point to the season.
“I'd only been to Eldora one other time and didn't really run that good that time, but we just had speed all weekend there,” Seawright said. “And it was a really fun deal and especially after we had unloaded the backup car, you know, after totaling the new car (during a preliminary event crash), we just brought out the whole backup car and it was pretty sporty.”
Team owner Brett Coltman thinks Seawright has the chance to develop into a star with the potential to contend on a national tour. The relationship between Coltman and Seawright goes back to when the longtime car owner gave Seawright his first sponsorship when he was a teen running the Schaeffer's Southern Nationals Series.
“Sam's outstanding,” Coltman said. “I've gotten to see him coming into his own and there's not a race he can't win. And what I think that he's shown an ability on this Hell Tour is the versatility to go from our Southern tracks to these Northern tracks, which, as we all know, that's the grail, it's to be able to come do both. I sit and watch (World of Outlaws Late Model Series competitor) Nick (Hoffman) and watch these (Midwestern) guys get better and better on our dirt as well. And he's just a smooth-headed driver. He's a good guy all the way around. Hopefully he'll be with us for a long time.”
Consistency in qualifying is key for Seawright over the final week of the Summer Nationals as he ventures to Michigan and Ohio tracks he’s never seen. He’d like to add a few more victories — former Coltman Farms Racing driver Zack Mitchell won three Summer Nationals events in 2025 — before returning to the Southeast.
While the Summer Nationals is decidedly a Midwestern tour, Seawright’s victory at Camden, Tenn., came as the tour dipped into the South.
“That place was just really similar to, like, tracks around the house,” Seawright said. “I felt like I was at home with that one, but, yeah, the car was good there and it was just basically kind of the same like Talladega (Short Track in Eastaboga, Ala.) or any of them other places. I'm learning more and more about the car every night on this kind of dirt, and I feel like we're definitely making improvements.
“We’ve just got to be a little bit better at race time,” he added. “We're just gonna hit and miss. We're not gonna run any series or anything. Just kind of go to the races that make the most sense for us. I just want to win some more races. We got plenty of podiums, so now I just want to win.”
The desire to win is what impresses his team owner the most, and why Coltman thinks Seawright will eventually compete on a national tour.
“That's why he's here,” Coltman said. “I think this development of being up here for a good season, getting your butt kicked a little bit, learning about how (the car) feels. It's not easy to be on the road. You miss everything. You have to have someone on your toter that wakes up every day and says, ‘You know what? There's another race tomorrow and we’re gonna win.’ ”
