GRANT'S ACTION TRACK USA WIN NETS USAC EASTERN STORM TITLE
Photo by Lee Greenawalt Photo
KUTZTOWN, Pa.—Perhaps no one was more surprised about the outcome of the USAC Eastern Storm championship than Justin Grant himself while standing in victory lane after winning Sunday night’s USAC Eastern Storm Presented by Levan Machine & Truck Equipment feature at Kutztown, Pennsylvania’s Action Track USA.
It was certainly not due to a lack of confidence in his abilities, but rather the fact that Grant thought, upon first glance, that the No. 3 listed as finishing third on the scoreboard was that of Kyle Cummins, which would’ve meant that he hadn’t finished far enough ahead of his main antagonist to earn the title.
However, the No. 3 in this particular case was the No. 3R of Kevin Thomas Jr. The No. 3p of Kyle Cummins had actually finished fourth, meaning that Grant had, in fact, tied Cummins at the top of the standings with 372 points apiece. Yet, due to the main tiebreaker of feature victories – which Grant had three of during the week compared to Cummins’ one – Grant had finally earned an elusive first Eastern Storm title.
“Checking Eastern Storm off the list is awesome,” Grant exclaimed. “When I first started racing, these Pennsylvania tracks were the ones I struggled with the most. The big half-miles were scary. The short tracks were so slick. I wasn’t good at any of it and I’d come out here and get my butt kicked all week. To win an Eastern Storm is incredible, and to win at a lot of these awesome PA venues in front of these great PA fans is awesome.”
The unbreakable zero point margin proved to be the closest Eastern Storm points race in the 18-year history of the event, taking over for the 2013 and 2021 editions, both of which had first and second separated by a mere one point.
Grant’s victory at the 1/5-mile dirt bullring carried many other accolades along with the initial glory. He’s now just the fifth driver to win both the final race of Eastern Storm and the Eastern Storm championship in one fell swoop along with Levi Jones (2007), Cole Whitt (2009), Brady Bacon (2014) and Robert Ballou (2015) who also achieved the feat.
Furthermore, Grant’s 59th career USAC AMSOIL Sprint Car National Championship victory now moves him one more step closer in his quest to becoming the winningest driver in the history of the series. Grant now stands just two behind Brady Bacon (61) for second all-time and three behind Dave Darland (62) for number one all-time.
In doing so, Grant broke another all-time record, along with his TOPP Motorsports team, by becoming the winningest driver/entrant combination in USAC National Sprint Car history. Together, Grant and TOPP have now won 51 USAC National Sprint Car feature events, surpassing the record formerly held by driver Brady Bacon and his Hoffman Auto Racing/Dynamics, Inc. team with 50.
“I feel like it’s a small thing I can do to say ‘thank you’ to (TOPP Motorsports owner) Kevin Birchmeier for all he’s done for me over the years and how much he’s believed in me,” Grant praised. “Even when I don’t believe in myself, and I’m terribly hard on myself, he’s always there to pat me on the back or pick me up and remind me that I’m a professional racecar driver and this is what I do. I joke that everybody else would’ve fired me by now, and I think I would’ve quit by now if I’d have been driving for anybody else. It means a lot to me to do that for him and with him, and it means a lot to win these races for my crew.”
The longest distance race (40 laps) on the shortest track of Eastern Storm commenced with leading USAC National Sprint Car Rookie of the Year contender Gunnar Setser pacing the first laps of his career with the series. Setser led the first eight laps of the feature from his outside front row starting position as pole sitter Kale Drake was in hot pursuit.
By lap nine, the front duo had reached lapped traffic. As the two approached the car of 18th place running Jason Cherry at the exit of turn two, Setser became boxed in on the low line behind Cherry while Drake had free reign up top. Drake subsequently blazed his way past both Cherry and Setser to find his way into the lead, which were also the first laps led in his young USAC National Sprint Car career.
On the tight and friendly confines of Action Track USA, traffic is always in play. On the 20th lap, Drake followed 14th running Kayla Roell on the high side of turns three and four. Left all alone on the bottom was Grant who had a clear path to the lead at the midway point and ran with it. In a race in which laps click away at around 11 seconds a clip, opportunities are scarce, and Grant wasn’t about to hesitate now.
“I don’t ever not go aggressively for the lead,” Grant asserted. “You feel like you’re good but you never know how many shots you’re going to get to take the lead. So, I feel like when you get an opening and you’ve got a chance, you’ve got to take it. I say that’s the reason they put your name on the visor, to go out and win races. If I see an opportunity, I’m going to try my hardest to take it.”
Over the course of the next 20 or so laps, Grant and his TOPP Motorsports/NOS Energy Drink – TOPP Industries – LA Poly/Maxim/Kistler Chevy remained in total control. That is until two laps remaining. That’s when Drake found a second wind and raced right back to the rear bumper of Grant who was now ensnared in his own bit of lapped traffic navigation.
Just after taking the white flag, the two raced into turn one only to find a five-car entanglement which began with contact between Setser (7th) and Kayla Roell (15th). Robert Ballou (8th), Mitchel Moles (9th) and Logan Seavey (10th) also all became caught in the web and slid to a stop. The top-two of Grant and Drake narrowly avoided catastrophe and averted to the high side scot-free.
As the field came to life on the ensuing lap 39 restart, second-running Drake’s car failed to take off, resulting in him coasting through the middle of the racetrack as he dropped all the way to the back of the field, necessitating a yellow flag. It was the ultimate heartbreak for Drake who was in position to earn his best career USAC National Sprint Car finish at the least, and was also in a spot to make a move to earn his first career series win. But it was not to be as he officially finished a distant 14th.
On the next green-white-checkered attempt, Grant had the field covered as he toured the final two laps with relative ease to cross under the checkered flag 0.835 seconds ahead of runner-up Jake Swanson. Kevin Thomas Jr. took third while Kyle Cummins came up just short of his first Eastern Storm crown by one single position. C.J. Leary rounded out the top-five.
With both Grant and Cummins equaled up at 372 points in the final Eastern Storm tally, it turned out that every point gained or lost each time they hit the racetrack was uber critical. After Cummins had led every step of the way throughout the week, Grant made the most of every single solitary opportunity, bolstered by three feature victories at Bridgeport, Port Royal and Action Track USA. All that and more led to Grant becoming the newest Eastern Storm titlist.
“We’re trying to win a championship this year, so we’re going to keep digging on that,” Grant said of his plans for the rest of the 2025 campaign. “Kyle (Cummins) has been awfully, awfully tough. We haven’t had a bad start to our year. I feel like we’ve been pretty good and we’ve been as good as you could hope to be. Kyle has been absolutely lights out. We’re looking for a little lights out of our own and I think we found it here at Eastern Storm.”
Kevin Thomas Jr. finished his USAC Eastern Storm on a high note by advancing from eighth to third in the feature to earn his best career finish at Action Track USA, while also solidifying Rod End Supply Hard Charger honors.
Briggs Danner passed a total of 27 cars throughout the week in heat race and feature event action, which earned him a $500 bonus as the USAC Eastern Storm Parallax Group Passing Master.
The runner-up finish for Jake Swanson in the feature was big in so many ways. Not only was it his best run of the USAC National Sprint Car season, it was also his best career series finish as a car owner. For that, he was deemed as the driver who made the Inferno Armor Fire Move of the Night.
Logan Seavey, meanwhile, recorded his 18th career USAC National Sprint Car Fast Qualifying award. That advanced him to 28th place all-time alongside 1960-1961-1962 USAC Sprint Car champion and 1963 Indianapolis 500 winner Parnelli Jones.
USAC AMSOIL SPRINT CAR NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP RACE RESULTS: June 22, 2025 – Action Track USA – Kutztown, Pennsylvania – 1/5-Mile Dirt Track – USAC Eastern Storm Presented by Levan Machine & Truck Equipment
HONEST ABE ROOFING QUALIFYING: 1. Logan Seavey, 57, Abacus-10.558; 2. Justin Grant, 4, TOPP-10.574; 3. Briggs Danner, 39, Hogue-10.647; 4. Jake Swanson, 5T, Daming Swanson-10.682; 5. Gunnar Setser, 5G, KO-10.695; 6. Kale Drake, 2B, 2B Racing-10.702; 7. Kyle Cummins, 3p, Petty-10.705; 8. C.J. Leary, 21AZ, Team AZ/Curb-Agajanian-10.711; 9. Kevin Thomas Jr., 3R, Rock Steady-10.818; 10. Mitchel Moles, 19AZ, Reinbold/Underwood-10.824; 11. Robert Ballou, 12, Ballou-10.828; 12. Steven Drevicki, 19s, DeGre-10.961; 13. Hayden Reinbold, 19, Reinbold/Underwood-10.972; 14. Braydon Cromwell, 4x, Boyd-11.202; 15. Joey Amantea, 88J, JPA-11.229; 16. Olivia Thayer, 39T, Thayer-11.364; 17. Kayla Roell, 4K, Roell-11.373; 18. Brody Adamsky, 60, McIlroy-11.831; 19. Jason Cherry, 67c, Cherry-11.912.
CAR IQ FIRST HEAT: (10 laps, all transfer to the feature) 1. Kyle Cummins, 2. Hayden Reinbold, 3. Mitchel Moles, 4. Logan Seavey, 5. Jake Swanson, 6. Olivia Thayer, 7. Jason Cherry. 1:48.177
K1 RACEGEAR SECOND HEAT: (10 laps, all transfer to the feature) 1. Robert Ballou, 2. C.J. Leary, 3. Gunnar Setser, 4. Justin Grant, 5. Braydon Cromwell, 6. Kayla Roell. 1:49.688
USAC GEAR THIRD HEAT: (10 laps, all transfer to the feature) 1. Kevin Thomas Jr., 2. Steven Drevicki, 3. Briggs Danner, 4. Joey Amantea, 5. Kale Drake, 6. Brody Adamsky. 1:51.645
FEATURE: (40 laps, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Justin Grant (5), 2. Jake Swanson (3), 3. Kevin Thomas Jr. (8), 4. Kyle Cummins (7), 5. C.J. Leary (10), 6. Robert Ballou (9), 7. Briggs Danner (4), 8. Mitchel Moles (11), 9. Gunnar Setser (2), 10. Steven Drevicki (12), 11. Braydon Cromwell (14), 12. Hayden Reinbold (13), 13. Kayla Roell (17), 14. Kale Drake (1), 15. Olivia Thayer (16), 16. Logan Seavey (6), 17. Joey Amantea (15), 18. Jason Cherry (19), 19. Brody Adamsky (18). NT
FEATURE LAP LEADERS: Laps 1-8 Gunnar Setser, Laps 9-19 Kale Drake, Laps 20-40 Justin Grant.
USAC AMSOIL SPRINT CAR NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS: 1-Kyle Cummins-1370, 2-Justin Grant-1275, 3-Mitchel Moles-1132, 4-Briggs Danner-1080, 5-Logan Seavey-1052, 6-Robert Ballou-1038, 7-Jake Swanson-1027, 8-Kale Drake-970, 9-Kevin Thomas Jr.-960, 10-C.J. Leary-957.
FINAL USAC EASTERN STORM PRESENTED BY LEVAN MACHINE & TRUCK EQUIPMENT POINTS: 1-Justin Grant-372, 2-Kyle Cummins-372, 3-Briggs Danner-360, 4-Mitchel Moles-335, 5-Jake Swanson-317, 6-Robert Ballou-290, 7-Kevin Thomas Jr.-289, 8-Logan Seavey-254, 9-C.J. Leary-253, 10-Hayden Reinbold-247.
USAC PARALLAX GROUP NATIONAL PASSING MASTER POINTS: 1-Kale Drake-135, 2-Briggs Danner-63, 3-C.J. Leary-63, 4-Robert Ballou-60, 5-Kyle Cummins-59, 6-Gunnar Setser-57, 7-Justin Grant-55, 8-Chase Stockon-50, 9-Kevin Thomas Jr.-39, 10-Jacob Denney-35.
USAC EASTERN STORM PARALLAX GROUP PASSING MASTER POINTS: 1-Briggs Danner-27, 2-Robert Ballou-25, 3-Kyle Cummins-23, 4-Justin Grant-22, 5-C.J. Leary-15, 6-Daison Pursley-15, 7-Mitchel Moles-13, 8-Steven Drevicki-13, 9-Kevin Thomas Jr.-11, 10-Gunnar Setser-10.
NEXT USAC AMSOIL SPRINT CAR NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP RACE: June 28, 2025 – Fremont Speedway – Fremont, Ohio – 1/3-Mile Dirt Track
CONTINGENCY AWARD WINNERS:
USAC Eastern Storm Champion: Justin Grant
USAC Eastern Storm Parallax Group Passing Master Champion: Briggs Danner (27)
Dirt Draft Hot Laps Fastest Driver: Kyle Cummins (10.610)
Honest Abe Roofing Fast Qualifier: Logan Seavey (10.558)
Car IQ First Heat Winner: Kyle Cummins
K1 RaceGear Second Heat Winner: Robert Ballou
USAC Gear Third Heat Winner: Kevin Thomas Jr.
Rod End Supply Hard Charger: Kevin Thomas Jr. (8th to 3rd)
Inferno Armor Fire Move of the Night: Jake Swanson
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