While the counsel and tangible help offered by Casey Shuman was timely, Grant‘s world was changing in other positive ways.
In 2012 he met a fetching young woman named Ashley, who just happened to have about as solid a tie to sprint car racing as one could find.
Her father was the legendary Norman “Bubby” Jones, while brothers Tony and Davey had made their mark in the sport as well. If that wasn‘t enough, her uncle Rip Williams – like her father – was a member of the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame.
In August of 2016 the couple were married, and the pair chose fellow racer Kody Swanson to officiate the wedding.
When asked how they arrived at this choice, Grant noted, “Well, we wanted it to be somebody that we knew and Kody is the most responsible, and the best human we knew, so we figured he should do it.”
What appears to be a comment said at least slightly in jest is in fact sincere.
“All available evidence I know points to that,” Grant said of Swanson. “When I first met Kody, I almost didn‘t like him. I was like, come on, get out of here with all of that. I thought he was fake, because most racers are really just self-centered and egotistical. There‘s nothing against that, it is just the kind of person that the sport attracts. That‘s what you are used to. Then you run across Kody and it is like, what‘s this guy‘s angle?
“Then, the longer you know him, you start thinking he really is all that and I‘m the jerk here.”
As part of the marriage, Justin entered the world of now 12-year-old Brogan‘s life, and on Jan. 8, 2017, twins Charlotte and Quinton (Bubba) were born.
Five nights later, Grant was climbing into a midget for Clauson-Marshall Motorsports at the Lucas Oil Chili Bowl Nationals.
It had been six months since Bryan Clauson had passed and emotions were still raw. Grant and Clauson had raced together as youngsters, and when it came time to experience their first ever sleepover, it was together.
In storybook fashion, Grant won his preliminary feature, and the next night he finished third in the grand finale behind Christopher Bell and Daryn Pittman.
He was back in the limelight, and since that point his life has seemingly changed for the better.
The bottom line is that everything now is put into perspective and there is little question that his worldview shifted dramatically when he became a father.
Grant is convinced that his new life status also altered his approach to racing.
“It wasn‘t like my kids were born and now I‘m a different person,” Grant says. “But having them and learning to work with them was important. I wasn‘t a great father out of the gate. I‘m a race car driver; I‘m impatient. There are nuts and bolts, and if there is a problem let‘s fix it. If we have to burn everything down, let‘s burn it down and fix it. Well, that really doesn‘t work that well with kids as it turns out. Sometimes you just can‘t fix it. So having the kids, and having to work hard on myself to get better at being a dad, has, I feel, made me better at all aspects of my life, and that certainly included racing.
“At this point of my life I have had some bad days. So, barring any major catastrophes, no matter what happens it is not going to be the worst day of my life. And even if I win, it isn‘t going to be the best day of my life either. Looking back, there have been situations along the way that I wish I would have handled differently. There were times where I got caught up in things.
“I mean, I haven‘t always had this perspective, and I still don‘t have it all the time. It is easy to get caught up in the moment, but looking back I am just so thankful for all the people who allowed me to get to where I am.”
Heading into the 2020 season, Grant knew he would pick and choose select dates to race a midget, but he was fully committed to the USAC sprint car and Silver Crown slates.
Early on, he was one of the hottest drivers on the sprint car trail, and after back-to-back wins in early June he appeared to be the man to beat.
Grant stayed at, or near, the top of the sprint car points for most of the season, but down the stretch the team just seemed to lose the handle.
It was tough because Grant thought this might be his year.
“I really thought it was all headed towards a championship,” Grant said. “So, it was hard when it fell apart.”
Even when things were going well, he knew how quickly it all could change. After all, he had been there before.
“The sprint car season is more grueling,” Grant explained, “because just the sheer volume of races makes it tough. It‘s where it becomes the superior test, because you do things in a sprint car you really don‘t want to do.
“Midget racing is cutthroat, and there are guys who will race a midget as hard as it can be driven, because you are mostly in control the whole time. It is the same thing with a Silver Crown car. With the sprint car you spend a lot of your day putting yourself in situations where something inside you is saying, ‘Don‘t do this.‘ But you push through it. So, when you show up and do that two or three nights it is pretty fun. The car‘s a little tight, you are carrying the left rear and you think who cares, I‘m having fun.
“However, when you are on night 35 of 50 and the thing is still carrying the left rear, you are pretty well over making yourself do it every night. That‘s what makes the sprint car an interesting game mentally. I think it wears you down more than the other ones do. A guy said to me, he thought a midget race was the toughest to win, and I said I think you‘re right, but only because there are a lot of guys brave enough to do it. You can do dumb things in a midget and they don‘t want to hurt you. With sprint cars, when the back door of the trailer drops, it is sitting there wanting to hurt you.
“I feel like I drive fairly hard but, at the same time, I am scared every day I go to a sprint car race. When I go to a midget or a Silver Crown race, I know things can happen but darn near every day in a sprint car I am marginally scared. Now, I am going to do it, because I‘m a sprint car driver and that‘s what I do. There is nothing wrong with being marginally scared. I would rather do that than know what I was going to do every day for the next 30 years.
“I‘m more scared of sitting at a desk every day than I am crashing a sprint car.”
This story will be continued in Grant’s Hard-Won Championship, Part II.