April 4, 2026 | By Richie Murray, USAC Media

Justin Grant triumphs at Red Hill Raceway

SUMNER, Ill.—Since winning in Ocala, Florida in February, Justin Grant had to wait 48 more days and nights until he received his next shot at backing up his latest USAC AMSOIL Sprint Car National Championship triumph.

Just like clockwork, the Ione, California native placed himself right smack dab into victory lane for the record-extending 67th time in his career with the series, but for the first time ever on Friday night at Red Hill Raceway in Sumner, Illinois.

Starting fifth on the grid for the 30-lap feature, Grant quickly made up ground on the 4/10-mile dirt oval, grabbing fourth on the opening lap, then picked his way to third and then into second in quick succession following a lap six restart.

Following another restart near the midway point, Grant turned up the wick, ultimately chasing down Robert Ballou on the 17th lap before leading the final 14 circuits to earn his second victory of the season in his TOPP Motorsports/NOS Energy Drink – TOPP Industries – LA Poly/Maxim/Stanton Chevy.

Chalk up another one for Grant as he collected his 96th career USAC national win across the board, four away from becoming the fifth driver to reach the century mark.

For Grant, the difference on this evening, oddly enough, came during a stoppage. USAC Rookie Bryce Andrews, running 22nd at the time, walloped the turn one wall and flipped over on the 13th trip around. The resulting red flag proved to be a turning point for Grant.

Prior to the red, Grant’s deficit was more than a full second as he wrestled the steering wheel in an attempt to track down Ballou. But as Grant waited, he pondered, and thus, came to the conclusion to alter the formula of his approach.

“Under that red flag, I kind of tried to calm myself down and just focus on running the cushion right,” Grant explained. “Instead of trying to catch Robert, I just started trying to pick apart the cushion and figure out how to make speed on the thing. I just had to go back to driving my racecar instead of trying to catch his. Then, things got pretty good.”

It certainly got good for Grant after restarting right on Ballou’s rear bumper for the lap 13 resumption. From there, Grant manifested his destiny, and shortly thereafter, took over for good on the 17th lap as he charged under Ballou for the top spot.

“We got a big run off two as (Ballou) started having some trouble getting into one and started to kind of cheat it,” Grant recalled. “Then, he wasn't making ground off two and I was able to get above it and really have a head of steam at him on the backstretch, then slide myself into three. I felt like I was actually faster behind him sliding myself into three. But the thing would run off in there all corked up, giving you that feeling like, ‘I'm ready to snap!’ So, it was it was a little sketchy down there. I was really balled up on the right rear tire across there.”

Two laps later, Mitchel Moles followed suit after starting alongside Grant on the outside of the third row. Moles too spurted past Ballou on the bottom of turn three to occupy second on lap 19, right within earshot of Grant.

Down the stretch, the top-two of Grant and Moles separated themselves from the rest of the pack, with 10th starting Briggs Danner slipping past Ballou for third entering the first turn on lap 22, but remained a half-straightaway back of the lead duo with just eight laps remaining.

On the final lap, suddenly, a bit of lapped traffic entered the picture. Grant skipped his front tires as he navigated turns three and four, and didn’t quite run his car up to the cushion as hard as he had over the last several laps due to the 17th place car of Hayden Reinbold positioned in that particular spot.

As Grant glazed up to the cushion and fell in line behind Reinbold, Moles turned down off turn four to make one final, last ditch effort at Grant, but came up two car lengths shorts. Grant’s winning margin of 0.175 seconds was the difference.

“I knew somebody was really close there at the end,” Grant acknowledged. “I could hear him or feel him or whatever it is, and I thought I was in trouble coming to the checkered there. Sure enough, he drove up under me into one.”

Grant was followed to the checkered flag by Moles, Danner and Ballou who led 12 laps. Kyle Cummins rounded out the top-five. Jake Swanson started on the pole and finished sixth after leading the initial four laps before Ballou took charge from Swanson with a turn two top-side maneuver that gave him control for 12 circuits between laps 5-16.

After racing successfully with a broken foot for the final four months of the 2025 season, Grant is back in fine form and back to where he was prior to the injury. Well, mostly.

“I'm tired; I was worn out,” Grant admitted. “It was hammer down around here, and normally, I've always been in really, really good shape. My neck’s been really strong, and, I've never needed to use a headrest in my seat before. But last year, I was hurt for so long and trying to get back into shape and trying to get my strength back. Tonight, my head was clear back over here, and I was taking on water like the last eight laps, especially. I was going to feel really bad if I let these guys down and didn't get the thing into victory lane because it's never good to be falling out of the seat.”

Furthermore, Grant took the lead with 14 laps remaining in the feature, and when all was said and done, no driver led more laps in the main event than he. In doing so, he captured the K & N Filters Clean Air Award winner.

C.J. Leary was moving forward in his debut aboard the Fox #53. Starting 18th in the feature, he moved up +8 to collect a 10th place result and Rod End Supply Hard Charger honors.

Mitchel Moles broke into the Red Hill Raceway record books in LearnLab Qualifying. His lap of 14.327 seconds shattered the track record set one year earlier by his Reinbold-Underwood Motorsports teammate, Hayden Reinbold, at 15.009. His 31st career quick time with the series rose him to 13th place on the all-time list, surpassing Pancho Carter and tying him with Sheldon Kinser.

Additionally, Logan Seavey set a new eight-lap Red Hill Raceway USAC National Sprint Car track record. He completed his heat race victory in a time of 2:00.61, breaking the former record of 2:05.197 set by Robert Ballou in 2025.


USAC AMSOIL SPRINT CAR NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP RACE RESULTS: April 3, 2026 – Red Hill Raceway – Sumner, Illinois – 4/10-Mile Dirt Track

LEARNLAB QUALIFYING: 1. Mitchel Moles, 19AZ, Reinbold/Underwood-14.327 (New Track Record); 2. Justin Grant, 4, TOPP-14.382; 3. Kyle Cummins, 3p, Petty-14.407; 4. Robert Ballou, 12, Ballou-14.446; 5. Kevin Thomas Jr., 3R, Rock Steady-14.456; 6. Jake Swanson, 5T, Daming Swanson-14.503; 7. Briggs Danner, 39, Hogue-14.507; 8. David Gasper, 77s, Sturgeon-14.632; 9. Chance Crum, 83c, Crum-14.634; 10. Hayden Reinbold, 19, Reinbold/Underwood-14.662; 11. Trey Osborne, 6T, Osborne-14.673; 12. Chase Stockon, 92, Sertich-14.686; 13. Logan Seavey, 57, Abacus-14.803; 14. Jadon Rogers, 14, Rogers-14.825; 15. Cale Coons, 63, Dooling/Curb-Agajanian-14.835; 16. Gunnar Setser, 5G, KO-14.862; 17. Brandon Mattox, 28, Mattox-14.886; 18. Kyle Shipley, 0G, Black Gold-14.930; 19. C.J. Leary, 53, Fox-14.953; 20. Logan Calderwood, 6, Calderwood-14.998; 21. Aric Gentry, 10, Gentry-15.346; 22. Chet Williams, 38, Williams-15.773; 23. James Boyd, 16, Boyd-16.094; 24. Bryce Andrews, 17, MSR-16.144; 25. Austin Hawkins, 5A, Hawkins-16.881; 26. Chelby Hinton, 2B, 2B Racing-NT; 27. Ivan Glotzbach, i1, Hayden-NT

K1 RACEGEAR FIRST HEAT: (8 laps, all transfer to the feature, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Logan Seavey (2), 2. Briggs Danner (4), 3. Gunnar Setser (1), 4. Robert Ballou (5), 5. C.J. Leary (7), 6. Mitchel Moles (6), 7. Hayden Reinbold (3), 8. Chet Williams (8), 9. Austin Hawkins (9). 2:00.261 (New Track Record)

TJ FORGED SECOND HEAT: (8 laps, all transfer to the feature, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Jadon Rogers (2), 2. Brandon Mattox (1), 3. Trey Osborne (3), 4. Justin Grant (6), 5. Kevin Thomas Jr. (5), 6. David Gasper (4), 7. Chelby Hinton (9), 8. Logan Calderwood (7), 9. James Boyd (8). 2:01.971

K & N FILTERS THIRD HEAT: (8 laps, all transfer to the feature, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Cale Coons (2), 2. Chase Stockon (3), 3. Kyle Cummins (6), 4. Jake Swanson (5), 5. Kyle Shipley (1), 6. Chance Crum (4), 7. Aric Gentry (7), 8. Bryce Andrews (8). 2:03.433

FEATURE: (30 laps, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Justin Grant (5), 2. Mitchel Moles (6), 3. Briggs Danner (10), 4. Robert Ballou (3), 5. Kyle Cummins (4), 6. Jake Swanson (1), 7. Cale Coons (9), 8. Jadon Rogers (8), 9. Logan Seavey (7), 10. C.J. Leary (18), 11. Chase Stockon (14), 12. Kevin Thomas Jr. (2), 13. Logan Calderwood (20), 14. Gunnar Setser (15), 15. Chance Crum (12), 16. Kyle Shipley (17), 17. Hayden Reinbold (19), 18. David Gasper (11), 19. Brandon Mattox (16), 20. Trey Osborne (13), 21. Aric Gentry (22), 22. Bryce Andrews (24), 23. Austin Hawkins (25), 24. Chelby Hinton (21), 25. Chet Williams (23), 26. James Boyd (26). NT

FEATURE LAP LEADERS: Laps 1-4 Jake Swanson, Laps 5-16 Robert Ballou, Laps 17-30 Justin Grant.

**Bryce Andrews flipped on lap 13 of the feature.

USAC AMSOIL SPRINT CAR NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS: 1-Logan Seavey-459, 2-Kyle Cummins-454, 3-Jake Swanson-439, 4-Justin Grant-437, 5-Mitchel Moles-423, 6-Chase Stockon-420, 7-Brady Bacon-402, 8-Kevin Thomas Jr.-401, 9-Briggs Danner-386, 10-Trey Osborne-353.

USAC PARALLAX GROUP NATIONAL PASSING MASTER POINTS: 1-Logan Calderwood-29, 2-Cale Coons-24, 3-Brady Bacon-18, 4-Chase Stockon-18, 5-Chelby Hinton-17, 6-Kevin Thomas Jr.-16, 7-Briggs Danner-16, 8-Robert Ballou-16, 9-Tom Harris-15, 10-Justin Grant-14.

NEXT USAC AMSOIL SPRINT CAR NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP RACE: April 11, 2026 – Lawrenceburg Speedway – Lawrenceburg, Indiana – 3rd Annual Justin Owen Memorial – 3/8-Mile Dirt Track



CONTINGENCY AWARD WINNERS:

Dirt Draft Hot Laps Fastest Driver: Justin Grant (14.594)
LearnLab Fast Qualifier: Mitchel Moles (14.327)
K1 RaceGear First Heat Winner: Logan Seavey
TJ Forged Second Heat Winner: Jadon Rogers
K & N Filters Third Heat Winner: Cale Coons
K & N Filters Clean Air Award: Justin Grant (14 laps led)
Rod End Supply Hard Charger: C.J. Leary (18th to 10th)