Sam Seawright
Dirt Late Model followers began to take note of the name Sam Seawright in 2021 as the 18-year-old driver posted some impressive runs. In particular, the native of Fort Payne, Alabama outran some of the sport’s top stars including Dale McDowell, Donald McIntosh, Cory Hedgecock and Jensen Ford to win a Schaeffer’s Oil Southern Nationals feature at Georgia’s Boyd’s Speedway to collect a first prize of $4,053 last summer.
Along the way in his young career, there have been several victories recorded at Fort Payne Speedway in Crate Late Model competition.
The No. 16 Black Diamond Race Cars team set out to follow up on that effort early on 2022 and they did exactly that immediately. Seawright scored another win at Boyd’s in January when he took the checkered flag ahead of the pack in the Cabin Fever event.
Despite his recent run of success, Seawright keeps an even balance.
“We just put the last race behind us,” Seawright recently told InsideDirtRacing.com. “We want to win every weekend and you can’t get too hung up on the races you have already won. You’ve just got to worry about this week and see what you can do the next week. You don’t want to worry much about last season, but we did have some good momentum at the end of the year and we’ve started off good at Boyd’s so maybe we can carry it over.”
As with any race team, a good maintenance program during the off-season is a key to early success.
“We pretty much tear the cars we’re racing apart and change everything,” the young driver explained. “We put new heims, new rear ends, all that stuff. We freshen up transmissions. We built a new car so, obviously, we put a lot of work into it to get it built. We got all of our shocks freshened and make sure our motors are good. There’s a lot of work that goes into it because you don’t want to start a year off with the same stuff you had last year or you’ll start off having problems.”
When he’s not racing or maintaining his cars, Seawright has plenty of other things to keep him busy. The senior at Alabama’s Plainview High School spends time tending to his class work, which he does online as a virtual student. He also does excavation work for his father’s company.
Seawright and his crew have three Black Diamonds at their disposal and are strongly considering bringing their newest ride to Smoky Mountain Speedway this Saturday for the Valvoline Iron-Man Late Model Series/Ultimate Super Late Model Series co-sanctioned Tennessee Tip-Off event that will pay $12,000 to its eventual winner.
“They are all pretty much alike,” Seawright said of his cars. “One of them is a new car so it’s a little bit different and we haven’t tried it yet. We may try it at Smoky Mountain.”
Sam Seawright in his Black Diamond Race Car
While he doesn’t necessarily plan to chase points throughout the upcoming campaign, Seawright does plan to hit several of Chris Tilley’s Valvoline Iron-Man Late Model Series races.
“I’m going to run a lot of Chris Tilley’s stuff but really mostly pick-and-choose because I don’t like running a series much,” he declared. “Sometimes you have to go far off to run a race you don’t want to run when there’s one closer to the house that pays more money. We aren’t going to race for points, we’re just going to run the races that make the most sense that are close to us.”
Ultimately, the goal for 2022 is clear for this up-and-coming driver.
“I just want to win a lot of races. I don’t really care which ones. I want to win a $10,000 feature but I really just want to make sure we’re good every time we unload.”
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