Justin Grant (Ione, Calif.) ended a streak of 16 USAC AMSOIL National Sprint Car starts without a win on Saturday night during the NOS Energy Drink USAC Indiana Sprint Week Presented By Honest Abe Roofing round at Tri-State Speedway. (Josh James Artwork Photo)
By: Richie Murray | USAC Media
Haubstadt, Indiana (August 3, 2024)………For Justin Grant, months and months of frustration led up to Saturday night’s penultimate round of NOS Energy Drink USAC Indiana Sprint Week Presented By Honest Abe Roofing at Tri-State Speedway.
The root of the consternation was evident in the results. Entering the night, Grant (Ione, Calif.) hadn’t won a USAC AMSOIL Sprint Car National Championship feature since the month of May. Since that point in time, a 16-race stretch had produced no wins and an uncharacteristic average finish of 11th.
Furthermore, throughout his first five ISW starts, Grant had drudged through with an average finish of 18th and a best result of 10th at Terre Haute, which had the 2022 ISW champ mired all the way down to 14th place in the standings.
Needless to say, times were rough for Grant and company, and they desperately needed a reprieve from the agitation they had endured for months on end with their TOPP Motorsports/NOS Energy Drink – Bow Foundation – TOPP Industries/Maxim/Kistler Chevy.
The 1/4-mile dirt oval in Haubstadt, Indiana provided the landscape for a bounce back as Grant started from the outside of the front row and was cruising as the leader for the first 18 laps. But alas, Grant felt like he gave away the race when Mitchel Moles briefly took the point just after the halfway mark. But when all was said and done, Grant made it abundantly clear this night was going to be different.
Two laps after seemingly seeing his chance at winning going by the wayside, Grant fought his way back past Moles, then was forced to fend off his repeated attacks down the stretch to reach Indiana Sprint Week victory lane for the first time this week and for the 10th time in his career, moving himself into fourth place all-time behind only Dave Darland (20), Jon Stanbrough (16) and Cory Kruseman (12).
But most importantly, Grant’s 51st career USAC National Sprint Car feature win represented so much more. It represented the tireless work that Jeff Walker, Nic Mansker, Kevin Birchmeier and Grant himself have put into turning the ship around and standing tall again in victory circle where Grant has taken the TOPP No. 4 now on 43 occasions dating back to 2018.
“It feels really, really good,” Grant exhaled. “It’s been a really, really rough go since about May, and we’ve worked very hard to get me comfortable in the car, to get things feeling right again, and I’ve worked these guys to death. I’m super thankful to them and their efforts.”
As fate had it, the 30-lap feature came down to a pair of teams, one of whom directly assisted the other on race day to overcome its struggles, so that they could get back on track and provide the entertainment that was witnessed on Saturday night.
“In the video we did earlier this week about teams helping each other out, and how we said all the USAC teams are really good at doing that, I said the first one to help me out would be Bunyan (Dylan Cook) and the 19AZ (Reinbold-Underwood Motorsports) guys,” Grant explained of the team that Moles competes for. “Tonight, they loaned me some parts to fix what we’ve been fighting all along. Now, I’m sure they wish they wouldn’t have. But that’s a testament to these USAC guys and this whole group we race with, not only for how competitive they all are and how good they all are, but also for how much we all want to go out and beat each other in the race.”
While Grant established the early lead, sixth starting Moles was eating up ground in his pursuit to the front as he worked his way into the runner-up spot by lap 12 when he charged past Seavey entering turn three. By then, the frontrunners were heavily invested in lapped traffic with Grant hustling to retain his half-second lead as the race crossed the halfway point.
On the 18th lap, lapped traffic didn’t exactly work in Grant’s favor. As he closed in on the then 18th place running car of Shane Cottle on the back straight, Grant had his path blocked, allowing Moles to drive past and assume his new position at the top of the pylon.
Moments later, after the leaders had already crossed the stripe to complete lap 19, Honest Abe Roofing Fast Qualifier Briggs Danner (9th) veered across the back straightway with a knocked out front end. That sent him right into the path of the oncoming Robert Ballou (14th). Ballou was unable to avoid the damaged car of Danner, going nose first into Danner’s left rear, which sent Ballou spinning to a stop while Danner’s helpless machine continued into the infield before ultimately coasting to a stop. Danner’s race ended on the spot with a 22nd place result while Ballou restarted and finished 11th.
Upon the lap 19 restart, Grant quickly found his second wind. Engaging with Moles in a sudden slider fest, the duo unofficially swapped the lead three different times during a two-lap span on laps 19-20 before Grant turned to the bottom to charge past Moles on the 20th lap.
Trouble ensued on the 25th lap that spelled disaster for the two-car BGE-Dougherty Motorsports bunch. C.J. Leary (4th) biked on his entry into turn three, sending him careening into the outside wall and flipping over. A tick of the clock later, his teammate, Carson Garrett (6th) broadsided Leary, knocking both team cars out of the race in one fell swoop, resulting in a 19th place finish for Leary and a 20th for Garrett.
With five laps remaining, the goal for Grant was imperative – keep Moles behind him. Grant’s tactic was to slide himself, a time-tested maneuver of which Grant noted its effectiveness, “It’s hard to slide me if I’m sliding myself.”
“I watched when Mitchel won down here (in June); he could make massive speed circling the top,” Grant laid out. “My stuff’s never really been that good at making speed circling the top here. I’m really good at scrumming the middle and hooking the infield tires. It’s not really the way it was tonight, though. It started getting slicked up there and I knew that the top was better. I kept seeing Mitchel’s nose, so I just went into defense with slider line, slider line, slider line. I was banging the cushion, getting a run and aiming for the first infield tire, then repeating and repeating. I’m like, ‘okay, I’ve got to do it 15 more times, 14 more times, 12 more times, 10 more times,’ counting it down, so we would be able to hold those guys off.”
After staying true to his plan for alps 25-26-27, Grant and Moles’ duel took a breather when Kale Drake (11th) got into the turn three and four wall before coming to a rest, thus ending his night. With three to go and another restart awaiting, Grant stuck to the playbook and thwarted each and every shot Moles fired at him.
Grant made all the right moves on the final three-lap shootout to defeat Moles by roughly three car lengths to the tune of a margin of 0.272 seconds. Logan Seavey completed the all California podium by grabbing third with Kyle Cummins fourth and Daison Pursley fifth in a wild scramble at the finish line that saw Cummins spin sideways in front of the pack at the exit of turn four before continuing on.
Mitchel Moles (Raisin City, Calif.) led a pair of laps en route to his best finish of Indiana Sprint Week 2024 aboard his Reinbold-Underwood Motorsports/AME Electrical – Mesilla Valley Transportation/Spike/Stanton Chevy.
Logan Seavey (Sutter, Calif.) not only maintained, but extended his Indiana Sprint Week point lead from 38 to 46 in his Abacus Racing/Honest Abe Roofing – Rockwell Security – Indy Custom Stone/DRC/Stanton Chevy.
Meanwhile, a promising night turned to dejection for Xavier Doney (Odessa, Mo.). Running third and in a transfer spot during the semi-feature, he got into the wall and flipped upside down. For his hard luck, he received a right rear Hoosier Tire courtesy of Sam McGhee Motorsports.
The night for C.J. Leary (Greenfield, Ind.) certainly didn’t end the way he wanted it to. It started off well, however, by qualifying seventh fastest overall in a field of 42 cars. For that, he earned a $177 bonus from Spire Motorsports.
As for Kevin Thomas Jr. (Cullman, Ala.), what more can you say about his effort to tough it out after a vicious qualifying crash seemingly derailed his night? Returning for the semi-feature in a backup Rock Steady Racing car, Thomas started 20th in the 12-lapper and finished third. In the feature, he once again started dead last, 24th, and managed drive to as high as fifth before slotting into seventh at the finish line. In the end, he racked up numerous awards on the night, including the Inferno Armor Fire Move of the Night, plus J & J Trucking Hard Charger, Pro Source Hard Work and Spire Motorsports 7th place finisher honors.
Richie Murray | USAC Media | Photo: Josh James Artwork
