KNOXVILLE, Iowa — The term “Half-Mile Master” in connection with Kyle Cummins would’ve been downright preposterous just a short time ago.
The Princeton, Indiana racer can now lay claim to capturing USAC AMSOIL Sprint Car National Championship feature victories at three of the most iconic half-mile dirt tracks in the world.
In April, he conquered Indiana’s Terre Haute Action Track for the first time. Two weeks ago, he mastered Ohio’s Eldora Speedway for the first time. On Friday night, he was triumphant at Iowa’s Knoxville Raceway on the opening night of the Avanti Windows & Doors Corn Belt Clash.
Perhaps the wildest part of it all is the fact that he’s added the entire trio of triumphs to his résumé within the past seven weeks. At all three of them, he had never won a USAC feature at prior to the 2026 campaign.
At Knoxville, on his third try at a restart while running in the second position, Cummins made it a charm as he slid C.J. Leary in turn one on the lap 18 resumption, then led the remaining nine laps to earn his fourth series win of the year and the 34th of his career, picking up a $10,000 reward in his Petty Performance Racing/Avanti Windows & Doors – JUGO Superfoods/Mach-1/Stanton Chevy.
Before this season, Cummins owned just one career USAC win on a half-mile, that being at Florida’s Volusia Speedway Park just one year ago. His initial Knoxville win on Friday night came in an event sponsored by his team owner, Jerry Petty, who provided a motivational directive to prior to the race.
“He told me we had to win tonight, and if we’re going to win tonight, we have to win tomorrow,” Cummins relayed from Petty. “We’ve never won here with him. We are always terrible here and it just seems like I could never get ahold of the track. Tonight, we brought something a little different. I tried something in the heat race and it was really bad. So, we went back to what we were running again.”
While Cummins started fifth on the grid in the 25-lap main event, it was third starting Gavin Miller, in just his second career series start, who surged past both front row occupants – Leary and Mitchel Moles – to gain the lead and the upper hand early in the going.
Cummins, meanwhile, instantly entered the mix, advancing two spots up to third behind Miller and Leary.
“The first couple laps, I felt good,” Cummins related. “I think C.J. was definitely faster than I was, but as the run went on, I felt like, if I fell back far enough to see the cushion, I could start running him back down. As my tires got heat in them, I think I became a little bit better, but then we always seemed to have a yellow.”
On the fourth lap, Miller got on the bike in a major way on the turn three cushion, rising his left side wheels to the sky before landing back on all fours. The ordeal allowed Leary to instantly close up the gap for the lead. One lap later, Leary went topside around Miller in turn four to pick off the top spot.
Miller changed course after the cushion excursion by rolling around the bottom. Cummins took advantage of the situation and used the high line to escape around Miller for the runner-up position on lap seven.
Nine laps into it, sixth running Jake Swanson endured a frightening incident when his right front spindle broke as he entered the high line in turn three. The sudden jettisoning of his right front wheel from the car promptly sent his car digging into the dirt and flipping into orbit. Swanson was able to climb out and walk away.
On the restart, Cummins took his first shot at Leary for the lead, to no avail, as Leary gapped Cummins to the tune of 1.5 seconds. That lead was quickly erased when 22nd running Dakota Earls flipped upside down in turn four on the 13th lap. He too was able to climb out and walk away.
For the next restart, Cummins was able to get side-by-side with Leary through turns one and two, but Leary successfully thwarted the attack for the time being and once again matriculated out to a full second advantage. That said, yet another stoppage halted the action on lap 16 when 16th running Riley Kreisel slowed with a flat left rear tire that forced him into the Indy Metal Finishing Work Area.
That set the stage for Cummins to make his winning move as he built a head of steam on the front straightaway, then successfully cleared Leary to assume the number one position on lap 17.
“On the restart before, I was all messed up,” Cummins admitted. “The next one, I went through the middle and was like ‘naw, not good.’ But the middle was better in three and four, so I decided to not even think about sliding him. I just wanted to get a start, get around one and two, and hopefully, break some momentum and get him in three and four because I thought I could stick a lot better there. When we took off, I was backpedaling down the straightaway. I’m like, ‘come on man. Go!’ I thought this is the only time I can get it. It’s extremely tough to pass somebody, and once I got out there and could see the cushion, I thought, ‘we got to go.’ It about bit me a couple times there.”
A lap later, Grant followed suit to second while Bacon slotted into third as Leary fell back to fourth in the pecking order. Meanwhile, Cummins’ lead had blossomed to nearly two seconds with the laps winding down.
Cummins finished the job to win by a 1.777 second margin over Grant, Bacon and Leary with Briggs Danner rounding out the top-five.
USAC AMSOIL Sprint Car National Championship, Knoxville Raceway, Knoxville, Iowa, May 20, 2026
LEARNLAB QUALIFYING: 1. Briggs Danner, 39, Hogue-18.562; 2. Kyle Cummins, 3p, Petty-18.622; 3. Justin Grant, 4, TOPP-18.627; 4. Gavin Miller, 21AZ, Team AZ/Curb-Agajanian-18.716; 5. Mitchel Moles, 19AZ, Reinbold/Underwood-18.757; 6. C.J. Leary, 53, Fox-18.760; 7. Kevin Thomas Jr., 3R, Rock Steady-18.764; 8. Brady Bacon, 20, Dyson-18.765; 9. Cale Coons, 63, Dooling/Curb-Agajanian-18.781; 10. Ryan Bernal, 17, Dunkel-18.870; 11. Logan Seavey, 57, Abacus-18.919; 12. Riley Kreisel, 91, Kreisel-18.946; 13. Jake Swanson, 5T, Daming Swanson-18.951; 14. Chase Stockon, 92, Sertich-19.018; 15. Robert Ballou, 12, Ballou-19.021; 16. Charles Davis Jr., 47, Davis-19.191; 17. Steven Snyder Jr., 87, CB/Spire-19.229; 18. Hayden Reinbold, 19, Reinbold/Underwood-19.237; 19. Kobe Simpson, 21K, Simpson-19.262; 20. R.J. Johnson, 1p, Petty-19.267; 21. Justin Zimmerman, 1, Herrell-19.499; 22. Troy Carey, 45N, Carey-19.522; 23. Glen Saville, 75, Grasmere-19.694; 24. Dakota Earls, 15E, Earls-19.724; 25. Trey Osborne, 6T, Osborne-19.910; 26. Jake Kouba, 6K, Kouba-20.402; 27. Ben Woods, 11B, B & R-20.664; 28. Clinton Bruns, 7, Bruns-21.483; 29. Lance Silvers, 7x, Silvers-23.066; 30. Jonathan Hughes, 67, Hughes-23.759.
K1 RACEGEAR FIRST HEAT: (8 laps, top-6 transfer to the feature, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Jake Swanson (2), 2. Briggs Danner (6), 3. Ryan Bernal (3), 4. Kevin Thomas Jr. (4), 5. Charles Davis Jr. (1), 6. Gavin Miller (5), 7. Kobe Simpson (7), 8. Trey Osborne (9), 9. Troy Carey (8), 10. Clinton Bruns (10). 2:38.908
TJ FORGED SECOND HEAT: (8 laps, top-6 transfer to the feature, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Logan Seavey (3), 2. Brady Bacon (4), 3. Steven Snyder Jr. (1), 4. Kyle Cummins (6), 5. Mitchel Moles (5), 6. R.J. Johnson (7), 7. Chase Stockon (2), 8. Glen Saville (8), 9. Jake Kouba (9), 10. Lance Silvers (10). NT
K & N FILTERS THIRD HEAT: (8 laps, top-6 transfer to the feature, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Cale Coons (4), 2. Robert Ballou (2), 3. C.J. Leary (5), 4. Hayden Reinbold (1), 5. Justin Grant (6), 6. Justin Zimmerman (7), 7. Riley Kreisel (3), 8. Dakota Earls (8), 9. Ben Woods (9). NT
FIVE STAR BODIES SEMI: (10 laps, top-6 transfer to the feature, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Chase Stockon (2), 2. Riley Kreisel (1), 3. Kobe Simpson (3), 4. Ben Woods (9), 5. Troy Carey (7), 6. Dakota Earls (5), 7. Jake Kouba (8), 8. Clinton Bruns (10), 9. Lance Silvers (11), 10. Glen Saville (4), 11. Trey Osborne (6). 3:26.672
FEATURE: (25 laps, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Kyle Cummins (5), 2. Justin Grant (4), 3. Brady Bacon (11), 4. C.J. Leary (1), 5. Briggs Danner (6), 6. Cale Coons (7), 7. Gavin Miller (3), 8. Mitchel Moles (2), 9. Robert Ballou (13), 10. Steven Snyder Jr. (15), 11. Chase Stockon (19), 12. Kevin Thomas Jr. (10), 13. Logan Seavey (8), 14. Kobe Simpson (21), 15. R.J. Johnson (17), 16. Justin Zimmerman (18), 17. Charles Davis Jr. (14), 18. Riley Kreisel (20), 19. Ben Woods (22), 20. Troy Carey (23), 21. Hayden Reinbold (16), 22. Ryan Bernal (12), 23. Dakota Earls (24), 24. Jake Swanson (9).
