SPEEDWAY, Ind. — Jakeb Boxell has spent the final couple of seasons on the street with 4 Kings Racing as a mechanic and part-time driver on the workforce’s USAC efforts.
In 2026, the 20-year-old Zanesville, Indiana, native will get the chance to race for 4 Kings full-time in USAC NOS Vitality Drink Midget Nationwide Championship competitors in a two-car operation alongside teammate, Kevin Thomas Jr.
Boxell owns 15 profession USAC Nationwide Midget begins relationship again to his 2022 debut, and for the final couple of seasons, has been below the 4 Kings Racing steady. In 2025, he bought the possibility to make 12 characteristic begins and rewarded the workforce with a pair of top-five finishes at Indiana’s Bloomington Speedway (fifth) and a career-best outcome at Ohio’s Eldora Speedway (third).
For Boxell, it’s a testomony that onerous work and perseverance pays off, and now, he will get his alternative on the 29-race tour within the coming 12 months.
“Ever since I began racing, certainly one of my massive targets has been to run a full season with the USAC Nationwide Midgets,” Boxell said. “We had fairly good runs final 12 months, and Rex (Turner), Matt (Westfall), Fred (Edwards) and Phil (Westfall) all got here collectively to make it occur and I’m able to run full-time this upcoming 12 months. I’m actually excited.”
Talking of Westfall, the Boxell and Westfall relationship goes again a methods. When Matt was an everyday on the NAMARS Midget tour within the late Nineties and early 2000s, it was Jakeb’s father, Greg, who was a crewman for the workforce. Greg labored at Bordner Welding, a longtime sponsor of Westfall’s racing efforts over the a long time.
Jakeb started his racing profession in karts earlier than transferring on to micro sprints and USAC’s Midwest Thunder Midgets. With the USAC MTM sequence, he gained twice, in 2024 at Ohio’s Limaland Motorsports Park and once more in 2025 at Indiana’s Circle Metropolis Raceway, a race during which he began 18th. In 2024, Boxell completed a strong third in factors.
Reaching again even additional, Jakeb’s great-granduncle owned a midget within the Forties earlier than transferring on to boat racing. Greg Boxell raced karts for a time. However when Jakeb was born, his father bought a kart for him, and collectively, they went racing, and it’s taken off from there.
A standard thread all through Jakeb’s early racing years was that his karts have been constructed by Westfall. In actual fact, Westfall constructed all of Boxell’s karts over time. Matt has recognized the Boxell household since Jakeb was in diapers. Now, because the crew chief for 4 Kings Racing, Westfall is certainly one of Jakeb’s bosses. Method earlier than they bought the possibility to work collectively, Jakeb thought-about Westfall to be his racing hero. Some issues by no means change.
“It’s undoubtedly bought to be Matt,” Jakeb mentioned. “Individuals snicker at me and suppose it’s humorous as a result of he’s my boss. However 4 or 5 years in the past, I might’ve by no means recognized he was going to be my boss. It’s simply the historical past of the stuff that Matt’s carried out. He’s bought USAC Dash Automobile wins. He’s bought midget, late mannequin and modified championships. He’s carried out an excessive amount of for him to not be certainly one of my heroes. He’s the man you need to look as much as that does an entire lot of various racing and he’s actually good in any respect of it.”
Boxell is aware of these vehicles out and in along with his mechanical function in recent times. Regularly, he works on 4 Kings Racing’s Midget and Silver Crown steady and is seen in any respect USAC occasions turning the wrenches.
“If you work on them, you clearly know what the parts do different than simply dragging your go well with bag out of your automobile to the race observe,” Boxell defined. “If you be taught the technical stuff about it, it makes you a greater race automobile driver in my eyes.
“I really moved in with Matt two years in the past when he referred to as me. I work on the store daily, and typically even by the weekend. If we’re busy, it’ll be a seven-day venture,” Boxell defined. “I assist put them collectively and we get them to the racetrack. I do upkeep, construct vehicles and tear them aside. So, it’s just about from naked body to race prepared and from race prepared to reveal body.”
As an added perk, Boxell will race alongside fellow USAC Nationwide Midget full-timer Kevin Thomas Jr., a six-time sequence winner who completed third within the standings one 12 months in the past.
“Between Matt being our crew chief and Kevin Thomas Jr. being my teammate, once we all have questions, we get right into a circle,” Boxell mentioned. “They’ve all raced a very long time and I’m simply the younger buck right here. They’ll clarify to me what I want to alter with my racecraft to make me higher. Simply having actually good folks to lean on and figuring out that they’re going to help me and trust in me, that’s undoubtedly a booster in my morale.”
