By Jacob Hord, @HordRaceWatcher
Back in April, we posted our 2025 All Star Circuit of Champions Season Preview, delving into the then 14 drivers slated to tackle the 30 race schedule across the region. Now that the season has wrapped up, it’s fitting to review the season and put a bow on it.
Driver changes shuffled thighs around quite a bit in the early season, with Cale Thomas going from the Rudzik Racing 49X to the Shark Racing 1A, with Trey Jacobs then tabbed to pilot the 49X for the All Star schedule. Thomas then went back to the 49X, but missed the first All Star race of the season. Jacobs then went to the Seeling 97 car, after they parted with their original driver, Justin Clark. That pairing didn’t last long, either, and shortly after, the Seeling 97 was off the tour.
It wasn’t talked about a lot until the final night of racing, but there ended up being “split champions,” also known as, having different drivers and owners champions. We’ll talk about their seasons, and then go through the rest of the drivers points below:
Drivers Champion: Kalib Henry and Racers for Life 101.
Kalib was my pick to win the championship in my season preview, at the time, Cale Thomas wasn’t going to be on the tour. I’m not sure if things would have changed, but it would have been interesting to see. Kalib and crew chief Andy Potter had a strong season, winning four times, tied for most with the All Stars. They finished in the top five 13 times and top ten 18 times out of 25 races respectively. For what ended up being a 25 race series, those are fantastic numbers. More importantly, the team could bounce back from any sort of adversity. That was exemplified most after their win in Hartford, Michigan; Henry’s first race back after being life-flighted out of Attica Raceway Park after a horrifying crash at the Brad Doty Classic. Or after a rough Labor Day Weekend, Henry and Co. finished off the season with four straight top five finishes, including a 22->4 run during the first night of the Jim Ford Classic, which all but claimed him the drivers championship. I’ve mentioned it before, but Henry has National Tour level talent, and now a regional championship to go on the résumè.
Owners Champion: Cale Thomas and Rudzik Racing 49X.
In the original version of my season preview, I said this championship would come down to Thomas and Henry. Thomas missing the first race of the season at Fremont took him out of contention for the drivers championship, but Trey Jacobs scored a P10 finish to help the team out with valuable points. With Thomas back at the helm, they had a rough weekend in Central PA, and a rough Speedweek opener at Millstream. After that, Thomas didn’t finish worse than P12 and had an 8.2 average finish with the All Stars in 24 starts. That’s how you claw your way back into a championship. If the All Star season had a few more races, we may have had a different drivers champion as well, as Thomas only finished 28 points behind Henry for that portion of the title. The team’s consistency won them the owners championship down the stretch.
I had a hard time picking who would win the All Star Championship in the beginning, so it’s only fitting that the two drivers and teams I was deciding between split the championship.
The Rest of the Field (based off full-time drivers points):
Zane DeVault: It was a very up and down year for DeVault and Lane Racing. They’d have a good weekend, but follow it up with a bad weekend, they just couldn’t get into that year-long rhythm they needed to. They showed what they were capable of in late August through early September with finishes of 2, 6, 8, 3, 3, and 5, but that was right after three straight P20 finishes and they then finished P18, 12, and 12 to finish out the season. The team also had good feature speed with charges of +15, +14, and +12 throughout the season. They get the consistency part of it down, and they’ll be tough in 2026.
Devon Borden: I labeled Borden as a wildcard for the championship, and that proved true. When he was hot, he was hot. But when he wasn’t he was usually outside of the top 15. But, this was his first year tackling a travelling series with many new tracks on the schedule. Right in the middle of the season, he caught fire and rattled off nine top five finishes in eleven races. That wins championships, but it has to be year-long consistency, and that was just lacking sometimes. Like DeVault, he can charge through the field, too, with runs of +17, and +13. Like DeVault and Lane Racing, if Borden and Grove Racing can figure out the consistency, they’ll be a top team in 2026.
Darin Naida: Taking on the All Stars was a big step for Naida and the 7N team, but I think he’s going to be much better of a driver because of this big step. Despite some of the struggles, Naida showed his potential with some podium runs and had good runs outside of Ohio. Even at the Pete Jacobs Memorial, he looked to have one of, if not the fastest car in the feature, and I thought I was going to owe him a goat before he spun out. This young man has a bright future ahead of him.
Brandon Spithaler: I’m not sure if disappointing is the right word to describe Spihaler’s 2025 All Star Season, but I thought he would’ve been in contention for a lot more wins and even a championship if the dominoes fell the right way. The All Star portion of his season never really materialized like a lot of us thought it would. He still picked off his first All Star win at Mercer, and had some good podium and top five finishes, but I think there was a lot left on the table for Spithaler. I hope he takes on the All Stars again in 2026 and can have a year we’re used to seeing out of him.
Greg Wilson: Wilson is another driver who probably wanted a lot more out of his All Star season. I think the right word to describe his season is ‘perplexing.’ For example: on night one of the Attica Ambush, Wilson finished P15 in the BMain. On night two, a P23->P10 charge in the feature. A P2 at Mercer and a P22->P10 charge at Fremont is what we know Wilson is capable of, it’s just that the mark was missed sometimes–probably more than he would’ve liked. But, Greg is a great voice of reason to have in the pits, and he’s a fan-favorite that the All Stars were lucky to have with them this season.
Cody Bova: It was a pretty gritty season for Bova and the family-owned team. I stated it would be tough-sledding for the team in my preview, and it was. The most important thing is, they grinded it out, even when they probably didn’t want to. I look at their wild crash in qualifying at Fremont during the final race of the All Star season. They could’ve loaded up and called it a year, but instead, they unloaded the backup car and finished the night out. That’s the toughness and resolve you like to see in a team when their back is against the wall. They hammered out some good runs at Fremont and Wayne County and gained a lot of experience at many new tracks.
Leyton Wagner: To put it bluntly, it was a pretty terrible year for Leyton, and I think he’d agree. Anything that could go wrong, did. At one point, I half-jokingly thought to myself, “He’s run out of things that can go wrong, so hopefully things start going right.” He was able to score a P5 at Mercer in September, but that was about the lone bright spot on his All Star season. As bad as this season went for him, he answered the bell every single time, and his unwillingness to give up is very admirable to see in his budding career.
Notes:
-Bobby Elliott finished P11 in points after missing the final five races due to fracturing his T4 and T5 vertebrae in a crash at Attica on August 30.
-Creed Kemenah was forced off the tour after fracturing his L4 vertebrae after a mechanical failure at Eldora during Speedweek
-Aiden Price was on-again-off-again with the tour, missing seven events.
-Van Gurley Jr and Justin Clark were off the tour pretty early on in the season.
Overall, it was a pretty solid first season back for the All Stars. Fourteen different winners and seven first-time winners (Kalib Henry, Bryce Lucius, Emerson Axsom, Devon Borden, Henry Malcuit, Kasey Jedrzejek and Brandon Spithaler). There was good parity across the series, and it was a good product night in and night out. A very sturdy foundation year for the revived series and I’m excited to see what 2026 has in store, and hopefully I can make it to more than four All Star races.