Kokomo, Indiana (April 27, 2025)………Over the course of the past three weekends, Justin Grant has tallied a victory in every piece of machinery he’s operated in USAC competition.
Sunday’s USAC NOS Energy Drink Midget National Championship triumph during the second and final night of the Kokomo Grand Prix at Indiana’s Kokomo Speedway was just the latest in a historic early season run for the Ione, California native.
Grant’s Kokomo win comes on the heels of an April 12 USAC AMSOIL National Sprint Car score at Lawrenceburg Speedway followed by a dominant USAC Silver Crown performance at Toledo Speedway seven days later on April 19.
In the process, Grant set an all-time USAC record by winning in all three national divisions in a season faster than any driver ever has before…by one single, solitary day.
For the past 23 years, Dave Steele had held the record for the earliest date any driver has accomplished the feat, doing so by April 28, 2002. Grant’s race-winning triumvirate was completed on April 27, 2025.
Grant was in command from start to finish at Kokomo in his CB Industries/NOS Energy Drink – PristineAuction.com – Mobil 1 – TRD/Spike/Speedway Toyota, leading all 30 laps in just his second start for CBI after joining the reigning championship winning team over the offseason.
As an aside, Grant’s winning ride provided the first USAC National Midget feature win for a car numbered 87 since Danny McKnight captured the Turkey Night Grand Prix aboard L.T. Caruthers No. 87 at Gardena, California’s Ascot Park a half century ago.
Grant’s 18th career USAC National Midget win moved him into a tie for 40th place all-time alongside Logan Seavey, and incidentally, Dave Steele. Overall, it’s Grants’ 90th career USAC main event win, moving him past Tom Bigelow for 9th all-time. Furthermore, his 82nd USAC national victory pushed him past Bryan Clauson for 7th place all-time.
But of most importance to Grant at the moment was the fact that Sunday’s tally was his first ever in a USAC National Midget at Kokomo, the same scene in which he’s the all-time record holder with 11 career USAC National Sprint Car wins. This one was truly an important one.
“It’s really special to win a midget race here,” Grant beamed. “It feels like it’s taken me forever to win one. I’ve been really close but I’ve never been able to get it done. (Car owner) Chad (Boat) had this car absolutely dialed tonight. I could move out to the middle. I could run the bottom. I could do whatever I wanted. It was a ton of fun to drive; an awesome racecar. Chad’s got a great team here with all the guys who work on this 87 and the other two cars as well.”
Grant’s wins across the USAC spectrum also have him in contention for a $500,000 reward posted for the driver who can capture the single season USAC Triple Crown by winning all three USAC national titles. It’s a feat which has only been achieved twice, first by Tony Stewart in 1995 and J.J. Yeley in 2003. It would be a quite lucrative payday for Grant, and although there’s a ton of season left on the plate, Grant feels he’s at the top of his game while currently sitting at the top of the Silver Crown and Midget points, and second in the Sprint standings.
“I’ve been trying for a long time,” Grant noted. “I feel like this is the year I’ve got everything lined up the way it needs to be lined up. If there’s a year to do it, this has got to be the one. I just have to take care of myself and keep myself excited and I’ve got a lot of people taking the load off my shoulders this year and letting me focus on driving racecars and doing my job. I’m working really hard at focusing on that and not so much on the other stuff.”
Granted started his race from the outside of the front row and immediately established the lead over pole sitter and series newcomer Steven Snyder Jr. Snyder, the leading series Rookie in points following the first weekend of the schedule, made his bid for the lead on lap five, sliding under Grant in turn one. However, as Snyder four-wheel-drifted up the racetrack, Grant slipped back under to retake the spot up front.
Throughout the goings, previous night’s winner Jacob Denney was matriculating his way up through the field from his eighth place starting spot, swapping slide jobs with Logan Seavey before taking over third in turns one and two just before midway. With six to go, Denney had tracked down Snyder and trekked his way into the second spot with a low line maneuver in turn four.
At that point, Grant’s lead held strong and had expanded to 2.7 seconds with three laps remaining. That is until contact in turn three between multiple cars resulted in the front end being knocked out on the car driven by 21st running Dan Bennett, resulting in Bennett slithering to a stop in the middle of turn three.
A caution on the ensuing restart for 11th running Cale Coons who stopped atop turn two required his car to be towed away back to the pits, ending his evening prematurely. As the field prepared to take the green for the lap 28 restart, second running Denney's left rear tire had deflated, leaving him to drive the final three laps on the rim as he free fell from a possible victory to a disappointing 12th place finish.
In turn, that left Grant all by his lonesome to finish off the victory by a 2.096 second margin. Snyder crossed the stripe a distant second over Seavey who nipped Cannon McIntosh at the line for third while Kale Drake rounded out the top-five.
For Snyder, the second place finish was the best of his USAC National Midget career so far through five starts. One night after earning his first career series top-10, Snyder grabbed both his first career top-five result and his first ever podium in his RMS Racing/EnviroFab – Vahlco Wheels – Rod End Supply – MPV Logistics/Spike/Speedway Toyota.
It was a bounce back night for Logan Seavey. After enduring a rough opening to his Kokomo Grand Prix the night before with an 11th place result, the two-time series champ returned to the podium with a third place run in his Abacus Racing/Indy Powersports – Prime 47 – CG CPAs – Mountain Mechanical/Spike/Stanton SR-11x.
Kale Drake was a Rod End Supply Hard Charger on Saturday night. He repeated the feat on Sunday with an even deeper run from 15th to fifth.
The Inferno Armor Fire Move of the Night was awarded to Kyle Jones, who experienced a bit of a frustration for the majority of Sunday night’s event. A nagging mechanical issue prevented him from hot lapping, qualifying and competing in his heat race. However, during the semi-feature, he advanced from last (seventh) to first, thus transferring his way in winning fashion into the main event.
Not only did CB Industries win the feature, they also swept both fast qualifying times over the weekend with Justin Grant taking top honors on Saturday and Drake Edwards topping the field on Sunday for his first career fast qualifying time with the USAC National Midgets. It marked the first time in which a single team opened the USAC National Midget season with two consecutive fast qualifying times since Keith Kunz/Curb-Agajanian Motorsports did so in 2016 with drivers Christopher Bell and Rico Abreu.
USAC NOS ENERGY DRINK MIDGET NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP RACE RESULTS: April 27, 2025 – Kokomo Speedway – Kokomo, Indiana – 1/4-Mile Dirt Oval – Kokomo Grand Prix
HONEST ABE ROOFING QUALIFYING: 1. Drake Edwards, 83, CBI-13.013; 2. Karter Sarff, 21K, Sarff-13.066; 3. Logan Seavey, 57, Abacus-13.073; 4. Daison Pursley, 86, CBI-13.107; 5. Justin Grant, 87, CBI-13.143; 6. Steven Snyder Jr., 4, RMS-13.194; 7. Cannon McIntosh, 71K, Kunz/Curb-Agajanian-13.212; 8. Thomas Meseraull, 7x, Engler-13.214; 9. Kevin Thomas Jr., 14, 4 Kings-13.242; 10. Gavin Miller, 97, Kunz/Curb-Agajanian-13.280; 11. Jacob Denney, 67, Kunz/Curb-Agajanian-13.293; 12. Frankie Guerrini, 63G, F & F-13.378; 13. Hayden Reinbold, 19AZ, Reinbold/Underwood-13.393; 14. Kale Drake, 97K, Kunz/Curb-Agajanian-13.403; 15. Gunnar Setser, 43, Arnold-13.466; 16. Brecken Reese, 00, Chandler-13.472; 17. Emerson Axsom, 67K, Kunz/Curb-Agajanian-13.485; 18. Cale Coons, 63, Dooling/Curb-Agajanian-13.492; 19. Sam Johnson, 72J, Johnson-13.531; 20. Steve Buckwalter, 25, Buckwalter-13.555; 21. Chelby Hinton, 4B, Klatt-13.579; 22. Chris Baue, 36, Baue-14.002; 23. Bryan Stanfill, 75AU, Griffiths-14.048; 24. Dan Bennett, X, Bennett-14.639; 25. Michael Magic, 5m, Magic-14.697; 26. Jason Bennett, 29, Bennett-15.294; 27. Adam Taylor, 7T, ATM-15.573; 28. Kyle Jones, 27x, Joyner-NT.
CAR IQ FIRST HEAT: (10 laps, top-5 transfer to the feature) 1. Kevin Thomas Jr., 2. Justin Grant, 3. Emerson Axsom, 4. Hayden Reinbold, 5. Drake Edwards, 6. Michael Magic, 7. Chelby Hinton. NT
K1 RACEGEAR SECOND HEAT: (10 laps, top-5 transfer to the feature) 1. Cale Coons, 2. Karter Sarff, 3. Gavin Miller, 4. Steven Snyder Jr., 5. Kale Drake, 6. Chris Baue, 7. Jason Bennett. 2:18.156
HOOSIER TIRE THIRD HEAT: (10 laps, top-5 transfer to the feature) 1. Jacob Denney, 2. Cannon McIntosh, 3. Gunnar Setser, 4. Logan Seavey, 5. Sam Johnson, 6. Bryan Stanfill. 2:16.332
COOK OUT FOURTH HEAT: (10 laps, top-5 transfer to the feature) 1. Daison Pursley, 2. Thomas Meseraull, 3. Steve Buckwalter, 4. Frankie Guerrini, 5. Brecken Reese, 6. Dan Bennett, 7. Kyle Jones. 2:18.656
ELLIOTT’S CUSTOM TRAILERS & CARTS SEMI: (10 laps, top-4 transfer to the feature) 1. Kyle Jones, 2. Chris Baue, 3. Dan Bennett, 4. Jason Bennett, 5. Michael Magic, 6. Chelby Hinton, 7. Adam Taylor. 2:22.080
FEATURE: (30 laps, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Justin Grant (2), 2. Steven Snyder Jr. (1), 3. Logan Seavey (4), 4. Cannon McIntosh (10), 5. Kale Drake (15), 6. Kevin Thomas Jr. (7), 7. Daison Pursley (3), 8. Karter Sarff (5), 9. Drake Edwards (6), 10. Gavin Miller (12), 11. Hayden Reinbold (14), 12. Jacob Denney (8), 13. Gunnar Setser (16), 14. Emerson Axsom (18), 15. Frankie Guerrini (13), 16. Sam Johnson (19), 17. Brecken Reese (17), 18. Cale Coons (9), 19. Thomas Meseraull (11), 20. Kyle Jones (24), 21. Dan Bennett (22), 22. Jason Bennett (23), 23. Chris Baue (21), 24. Steve Buckwalter (20). NT
FEATURE LAP LEADERS: Laps 1-30 Justin Grant.
USAC NOS ENERGY DRINK MIDGET NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS: 1-Justin Grant-150, 2-Cannon McIntosh-144, 3-Daison Pursley-135, 4-Jacob Denney-128, 5-Steven Snyder Jr.-127, 6-Kale Drake-127, 7-Logan Seavey-119, 8-Karter Sarff-117, 9-Drake Edwards-115, 10-Gavin Miller-108.
USAC PARALLAX GROUP NATIONAL PASSING MASTER POINTS: 1-Kale Drake-62, 2-C.J. Leary-48, 3-Briggs Danner-36, 4-Jadon Rogers-26, 5-Chase Stockon-24, 6-Kyle Cummins-19, 7-Robert Ballou-18, 8-Justin Grant-17, 9-Daison Pursley-17, 10-Jake Swanson-17.
NEXT USAC NOS ENERGY DRINK MIDGET NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP RACES: May 16-17, 2025 – Belleville Short Track – Belleville, Kansas – 1/4-Mile Dirt Oval – Huncovsky Classic
CONTINGENCY AWARD WINNERS:
Dirt Draft Hot Laps Fastest Driver: Karter Sarff (13.122)
Honest Abe Roofing Fast Qualifier: Drake Edwards (13.013)
Car IQ First Heat Winner: Kevin Thomas Jr.
K1 RaceGear Second Heat Winner: Cale Coons
Hoosier Tire Third Heat Winner: Jacob Denney
Cook Out Fourth Heat Winner: Daison Pursley
Elliott’s Custom Trailers & Carts Semi Winner: Kyle Jones
Rod End Supply Hard Charger: Kale Drake (15th to 5th)
Inferno Armor Fire Move of the Night: Kyle Jones
