May 17, 2026 | By Richie Murray, USAC Media

Brady Bacon ties Dave Darland on USAC all time win list with Eldora wire-to-wire victory

ROSSBURG, Ohio—Throughout Brady Bacon’s remarkable USAC AMSOIL National Sprint Car career, he’s posted some staggering statistical facts and figures.

On Saturday night at Rossburg, Ohio’s Eldora Speedway, the Broken Arrow, Oklahoma native put another one on the board of substantial significance.

Bacon controlled the entire 30-lap distance as he raced to his 62nd career USAC National Sprint Car feature victory, tying himself for second place on the all-time series win list alongside Dave Darland.

Starting from the pole in his Chris Dyson Racing/Concord American Flagpole – Racer Magazine/Triple X/Rider Chevy, Bacon had little trouble in dismantling the 24-car field on the 1/2-mile dirt oval for his first triumph of the 2026 USAC season.

Bacon led every single lap en route to a 3.025 second score to capture the #LetsRaceTwo Presented by LGMG finale and a $12,000 top prize.

Bacon’s fourth career Eldora USAC National Sprint Car win was his third during #LetsRaceTwo, which he had also previously achieved in 2018 and 2025. Furthermore, Bacon’s latest success finally came to him following four runner-up finishes in his first seven starts with the series in 2026, including one 24 hours earlier.

Grant remains the all-time USAC National Sprint Car win leader with 67, but Bacon was able to edge one win closer as he hopes to get back in the race to the top of the series win list despite running a partial USAC schedule this season.

“It’s definitely cool,” Bacon said of equaling Darland on the list. “Hopefully, we can get some more and sneak past Justin in a little bit.”

Despite starting his race on the inside line, Bacon imposed his will and quickly jumped to the top ahead of outside front row starter. As Bacon settled into commanding the top spot. Grant slotted into second by the end of the opening lap. But from there on out, for all intents and purposes, all were chasing Bacon.

The lone red flag of the night occurred on lap six when 23rd running Paul Dues flipped upside down in turn one. He was able to climb out and walk away.

After the restart, a high wire act commenced among the top-four with Bacon leading the charge up top next to the outside wall ahead of Grant, Friday night Eldora winner Kyle Cummins and Briggs Danner.

By lap 10, Bacon’s lead stood at two full seconds. By the halfway mark on lap 15, Bacon’s advantage had ballooned to 3.4 seconds, a full straightaway distance over Grant as Bacon worked past lapped traffic with relative ease.

“Starting position was everything tonight,” Bacon explained. “We’re really good when it’s a fast along a pretty hard and treacherous cushion. I knew that if we got up front and didn’t make any mistakes, we’d be pretty hard to beat. Lapped traffic got a little weird there because they were throwing up so much dust that it made it hard to see the wall. That was a little tricky off turn two but the car was really good. The guys bring me a car capable of winning every night, so I’m glad to finally get this win. We’ve had a lot of second places this year.”

Bacon was committed to the top, never wavering on the high side momentum he’d built over the first several laps of the race, and had no inkling of letting loose of that grip anytime soon.

“Even the lapped cars were actually holding a pretty good pace on the bottom,” Bacon explained. “I got a little worried about that, but I was still kind of gaining on them and knew it was going to be really hard for someone to pass me if I just kept my momentum up. Luckily, not many of the lapped cars were in my lane. It gave me free range to do what I wanted, but there were a couple times I had to slide them. I was really good when I slid across turn two, and that was encouraging. If I had to get in a battle with someone, I could slide across really good.”

The only position in play was everything behind Bacon. Cummins made his move as he slid Grant in turn one for the second spot. Danner followed suit past Grant for third on lap 22. Likewise, Moles overtook Grant for fourth on lap 26, while Steven Snyder Jr. snookered both Grant and Moles in the waning laps to rise to fourth all while Grant fell back to sixth.

In the end, and through it all, Bacon was the dominant force, crossing the line as a USAC National Sprint Car winner for a record-extending 16th consecutive season, dating back to 2011. Cummins finished a distant second, with Danner third, Snyder fourth and Moles rounding out the top-five.

It was all clean air for Bacon from start to finish in the feature as he led every single one of the 30 laps to pick up the K & N Filters Clean Air Award.

In just his second career USAC National Sprint Car appearance, Snyder is making waves. In the feature, he advanced +10 from his 14th starting spot to finish fourth, making him the night’s Rod End Supply Hard Charger.

C.J. Leary set a brand new USAC National Sprint Car record by qualifying for his 328th consecutive feature start with the series dating back to November 2017. His new Ironman mark broke the previous record of 327 held by Justin Grant.

On Friday, Kyle Cummins got his first Eldora feature win. On Saturday, he collected his first fast time at The Big E in LearnLab Qualifying. Overall, it's Cummins' 21st career USAC National Sprint Car fast qualifying time, tying him with the great A.J. Foyt for 24th place all-time.


USAC AMSOIL SPRINT CAR NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP RACE RESULTS: May 16, 2026 – Eldora Speedway – Rossburg, Ohio – #LetsRaceTwo Presented by LGMG – 1/2-Mile Dirt Track

LEARNLAB QUALIFYING: 1. Kyle Cummins, 3p, Petty-15.734; 2. Cale Coons, 63, Dooling/Curb-Agajanian-15.799; 3. Justin Grant, 4, TOPP-15.822; 4. Mitchel Moles, 19AZ, Reinbold/Underwood-15.834; 5. Logan Seavey, 57, Abacus-15.854; 6. Brady Bacon, 20, Dyson-15.918; 7. C.J. Leary, 53, Fox-15.952; 8. Briggs Danner, 39, Hogue-15.962; 9. Chase Stockon, 92, Sertich-15.964; 10. Jake Swanson, 5T, Daming Swanson-15.971; 11. Kevin Thomas Jr., 3R, Rock Steady-15.975; 12. Jadon Rogers, 14, Rogers-16.023; 13. Steven Snyder Jr., 87, CBI/Spire-16.095; 14. Zack Pretorius, 9z, Pretorius-16.130; 15. Hayden Reinbold, 19, Reinbold/Underwood-16.194; 16. Shawn Westerfeld, 4J, Fischesser/Owen-16.289; 17. Robert Ballou, 12, Ballou-16.300; 18. Max Adams, 40, Hery-16.310; 19. Trey Osborne, 6T, Osborne-16.392; 20. Paul Dues, 87x, Dues-16.395; 21. Logan Calderwood, 6, Calderwood-16.412; 22. Troy Carey, 45N, Carey-16.486; 23. Kobe Simpson, 21K, Simpson-16.513; 24. Brandon Mattox, 28, Mattox-16.531; 25. Nate Carle, 14c, Carle-16.540; 26. Braxton Cummings, 71B, Cummings-16.643; 27. Todd Hobson, 44, Soudrette-17.047.

K1 RACEGEAR FIRST HEAT: (8 laps, top-6 transfer to the feature, starting positions in parentheses) 1. C.J. Leary (4), 2. Steven Snyder Jr. (2), 3. Kyle Cummins (6), 4. Jake Swanson (3), 5. Mitchel Moles (5), 6. Trey Osborne (7), 7. Shawn Westerfeld (1), 8. Troy Carey (8), 9. Nate Carle (9). 2:08.820

TJ FORGED SECOND HEAT: (8 laps, top-6 transfer to the feature, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Robert Ballou (1), 2. Briggs Danner (4), 3. Cale Coons (6), 4. Kevin Thomas Jr. (3), 5. Logan Seavey (5), 6. Zack Pretorius (2), 7. Kobe Simpson (8), 8. Paul Dues (7), 9. Braxton Cummings (9). 2:12.334

K & N FILTERS THIRD HEAT: (8 laps, top-6 transfer to the feature, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Brady Bacon (5), 2. Jadon Rogers (3), 3. Justin Grant (6), 4. Max Adams (1), 5. Chase Stockon (4), 6. Hayden Reinbold (2), 7. Logan Calderwood (7), 8. Brandon Mattox (8), 9. Todd Hobson (9). 2:13.651

FIVE STAR BODIES SEMI: (10 laps, top-6 transfer to the feature, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Logan Calderwood (3), 2. Shawn Westerfeld (1), 3. Troy Carey (5), 4. Kobe Simpson (4), 5. Todd Hobson (9), 6. Paul Dues (2), 7. Braxton Cummings (8), 8. Nate Carle (7), 9. Brandon Mattox (6). 2:59.071

FEATURE: (30 laps, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Brady Bacon (1), 2. Kyle Cummins (6), 3. Briggs Danner (9), 4. Steven Snyder Jr. (14), 5. Mitchel Moles (3), 6. Justin Grant (4), 7. Hayden Reinbold (16), 8. Logan Seavey (2), 9. Cale Coons (5), 10. Max Adams (17), 11. Trey Osborne (18), 12. Robert Ballou (8), 13. Chase Stockon (10), 14. Zack Pretorius (15), 15. Jake Swanson (11), 16. Jadon Rogers (13), 17. C.J. Leary (7), 18. Logan Calderwood (19), 19. Kevin Thomas Jr. (12), 20. Shawn Westerfeld (20), 21. Troy Carey (21), 22. Kobe Simpson (22), 23. Todd Hobson (23), 24. Paul Dues (24). NT

FEATURE LAP LEADERS: Laps 1-30 Brady Bacon.

**Paul Dues flipped on lap 6 of the feature.

USAC AMSOIL SPRINT CAR NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS: 1-Kyle Cummins-918, 2-Justin Grant-844, 3-Mitchel Moles-828, 4-Logan Seavey-780, 5-Jake Swanson-760, 6-Briggs Danner-744, 7-Chase Stockon-736, 8-Kevin Thomas Jr.-725, 9-C.J. Leary-659, 10-Robert Ballou-637.

USAC PARALLAX GROUP NATIONAL PASSING MASTER POINTS: 1-Logan Calderwood-39, 2-Cale Coons-38, 3-Hayden Reinbold-36, 4-Briggs Danner-34, 5-Justin Grant-32, 6-Kevin Thomas Jr.-31, 7-Robert Ballou-30, 8-Chase Stockon-24, 9-Brady Bacon-23, 10-Trey Osborne-23.

NEXT USAC AMSOIL SPRINT CAR NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP RACE: May 20, 2026 – Terre Haute Action Track – Terre Haute, Indiana – 56th Tony Hulman Classic – 1/2-Mile Dirt Track


CONTINGENCY AWARD WINNERS:

Dirt Draft Hot Laps Fastest Driver: Justin Grant (16.032)
LearnLab Fast Qualifier: Kyle Cummins (15.734)
K1 RaceGear First Heat Winner: C.J. Leary
TJ Forged Second Heat Winner: Robert Ballou
K & N Filters Third Heat Winner: Brady Bacon
Five Star Bodies Semi Winner: Logan Calderwood
K & N Filters Clean Air Award: Brady Bacon (30 laps led)
Rod End Supply Hard Charger: Steven Snyder Jr. (14th to 4th)