PUTNAMVILLE, Ind. — Kyle Cummins was lucky and good en route to winning Friday night’s Sprintacular opener at Lincoln Park Speedway.
Starting fifth on the grid for the USAC AMSOIL Sprint Car National Championship event, Cummins plucked his way through the field, grabbing the lead on the 10th lap, then withstood a throng of lapped traffic and constant pressure from Justin Grant and Jadon Rogers to lead the remaining 21 circuits at the wheel of his Petty Performance Racing/Avanti Windows & Doors – JUGO Superfoods/Mach-1/Stanton Chevy.
Cummins’ latest triumph was his second consecutive, and his series leading seventh of the year. It was also his 37th career USAC AMSOIL Sprint Car triumph.
The luck that Cummins mentioned came in the form of flat right rear tires befalling a couple of frontrunners in Thomas Meseraull, who led the initial six laps, as well as top five occupant Mitchel Moles, who battled with Cummins for position during the early stages of the race.
That’s not to say Cummins wouldn’t have eventually gotten to the front, but for him, it certainly cracked the door open a bit further for him to make a run to the front to earn his first Sprintacular victory since 2019. Both
“It’s good luck on my part that we didn’t have a flat tire,” Cummins admitted. “T-Mez was a lapped car, and he was faster than I was for a little bit. If he hadn’t had a flat tire, he’d have been tough to beat, and he probably would have won. We got some luck and then Mitchel had a flat tire too. So, the flat tires moved me up a couple positions and that was pretty good luck there.”
Lincoln Park is legendary for its curb. That said, it’s not really Cummins’ forte. But on this particular occasion, he took a liking to it out of necessity.
“We threw everything we knew at it and tried to get a little different feel,” Cummins explained. “Normally, I like a cushion, but when it’s this curbed up, I’m terrible. I kind of just sailed out and said I’m going to run the top the entire way. I wasn’t very good on the bottom, but the first couple of laps, I was able to get a couple guys there. You can be all right and then you can get some luck.”
Speaking of misfortune, Gunnar Setser was slated to start from the outside of the front row. However, when trying to push his car off, his mount failed to fire, forcing him to the sidelines prior to the green flag. Meseraull, whose last USAC National Sprint Car victory came seven years ago in 2019, was strong early until 18th place running Kyle Johnson’s turn four flip on lap six.
During the ensuing red flag, both Meseraull’s and Moles’ right rear tires were down. Restarting at the tail, Meseraull crossed the line 13th while Moles worked back to 11th.
Grant held the lead for the lap seven resumption, but it was Cummins who was making all the noise. Restarting third, Cummins wound it up on the top side to race by Kevin Thomas Jr. on the back straightaway on lap eight to slot into second. By lap 10, Cummins had tracked down Grant and charged past him for the lead on the front straight, where he remained for good.
Meanwhile, Rogers had endured a roller coaster of a night. After qualifying second, he flipped wildly in his heat race, but bounced back to win the semi. Starting 10th in the feature, he was up to fourth as he rocketed around the outside of Robert Ballou in turn two on lap 15, then repeated the same maneuver on Thomas Jr. for third on lap 17.
When Cummins caught traffic with 12 laps remaining, Grant and Rogers were able to close the gap on the lead to where they were a car length off from being nose-to-tail running one-two-three on the cushion with lapped cars running both high and low, including Meseraull on the top, and the leaders deciding which way to go.
“If a lapped car was beside me, I was like, ‘OK, I’m OK,’” Cummins said. “Surely, he wasn’t going to drive around me on the bottom. So, I was just making good laps, and then if T-Mez pulled away from me a little bit, I could see the cushion again, so I could get back on it. I just wanted to make sure I didn’t hit the cushion and get over the top of it and then lose everything. When it’s curbed up like this, it’s pretty, pretty important to get to the front and stay in the front, and it makes it to where you can’t see as good. For him to pull off a slider, it made it a little more difficult. I don’t know if our car was better, but if he was right there on me, he would’ve had a good car too.”
It wasn’t good enough to rip away a victory from Cummins’ grasp, however. Coming to the white flag, Grant got himself as close as a car length and a half from Cummins’ tail tank in turn two. But a brief hiccup from Grant allowed Cummins to break away to his third career Lincoln Park USAC National Sprint Car win by 0.434 seconds over Grant, Rogers, Ballou and Thomas Jr.
USAC AMSOIL Sprint Car National Championship, Lincoln Park Speedway, Putnamville, Indiana, July 3, 2026
LEARNLAB QUALIFYING: 1. Mitchel Moles, 19AZ, Reinbold/Underwood-12.291; 2. Jadon Rogers, 14, Rogers-12.365; 3. Kyle Cummins, 3p, Petty-12.450; 4. Kevin Thomas Jr., 15, BBI-12.562; 5. Justin Grant, 4, TOPP-12.584; 6. Gunnar Setser, G5, Setser-12.595; 7. Briggs Danner, 39, Hogue-12.614; 8. Tony Helton, 87, Helton-12.621; 9. Thomas Meseraull, 24, Simon-12.632; 10. Harley Burns, 3R, Rock Steady-12.653; 11. Chance Crum, 83c, Crum-12.756; 12. Chase Stockon, 92, Sertich-12.827; 13. Austin Nigh, 97, Nigh-12.842; 14. Daylan Chambers, 4c, Chambers-12.849; 15. Logan Seavey, 57, Abacus-12.882; 16. Jake Swanson, 5T, Daming Swanson-12.901; 17. Wyatt Burks, 11w, Burks-12.911; 18. Austin Cory, 49, Cory-12.913; 19. Wesley Smith, 44, Smith-12.922; 20. Robert Ballou, 12, Ballou-12.970; 21. Gavin Miller, 21AZ, Team AZ/Curb-Agajanian-12.971; 22. Cale Coons, 63, Dooling/Curb-Agajanian-13.036; 23. Brandon Mattox, 28, Mattox-13.042; 24. Hayden Reinbold, 19, Reinbold/Underwood-13.069; 25. C.J. Leary, 53, Fox-13.083; 26. Colin Parker, 16K, Knight-13.085; 27. Ivan Glotzbach, i1, Hayden-13.190; 28. Kyle Johnson, 99J, Johnson-13.228; 29. Max Adams, 24p, Paul-13.281; 30. Troy Carey, 45N, Carey-13.373; 31. Aric Gentry, 10, Gentry-13.465; 32. Tom Eller, 29OG, Eller-14.186; 33. Hilton Rowett, s46, Rowett-14.567; 34. Keivan Clodfelter, 79, Clodfelter-14.628.
K1 RACEGEAR FIRST HEAT: (10 laps, top 5 transfer to the feature, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Gavin Miller (1), 2. Thomas Meseraull (4), 3. Mitchel Moles (6), 4. Wyatt Burks (2), 5. Justin Grant (5), 6. C.J. Leary (7), 7. Max Adams (8), 8. Austin Nigh (3), 9. Hilton Rowett (9). 2:11.049
TJ FORGED SECOND HEAT: (10 laps, top 5 transfer to the feature, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Cale Coons (1), 2. Gunnar Setser (5), 3. Harley Burns (4), 4. Daylan Chambers (3), 5. Austin Cory (2), 6. Troy Carey (8), 7. Keivan Clodfelter (9), 8. Colin Parker (7), 9. Jadon Rogers (6). NT
K & N FILTERS THIRD HEAT: (10 laps, top 5 transfer to the feature, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Logan Seavey (3), 2. Brandon Mattox (1), 3. Kyle Cummins (6), 4. Wesley Smith (2), 5. Chance Crum (4), 6. Ivan Glotzbach (7), 7. Briggs Danner (5), 8. Aric Gentry (8). NT
INDY POWERSPORTS FOURTH HEAT: (10 laps, top 5 transfer to the feature, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Robert Ballou (2), 2. Jake Swanson (3), 3. Chase Stockon (4), 4. Kevin Thomas Jr. (6), 5. Kyle Johnson (7), 6. Tony Helton (5), 7. Hayden Reinbold (1), 8. Tom Eller (8). 2:10.525
FIVE STAR BODIES SEMI: (12 laps, top 4 transfer to the feature, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Jadon Rogers (1), 2. Briggs Danner (2), 3. C.J. Leary (4), 4. Tony Helton (3), 5. Hayden Reinbold (7), 6. Max Adams (8), 7. Aric Gentry (10), 8. Ivan Glotzbach (5), 9. Austin Nigh (9), 10. Troy Carey (6), 11. Hilton Rowett (12), 12. Tom Eller (11). 2:40.165
FEATURE: (30 laps, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Kyle Cummins (5), 2. Justin Grant (3), 3. Jadon Rogers (10), 4. Robert Ballou (8), 5. Kevin Thomas Jr. (4), 6. Logan Seavey (7), 7. Briggs Danner (11), 8. Jake Swanson (18), 9. Gavin Miller (13), 10. Chase Stockon (16), 11. Mitchel Moles (6), 12. Harley Burns (14), 13. Thomas Meseraull (1), 14. Cale Coons (9), 15. Wesley Smith (21), 16. Hayden Reinbold (25-P), 17. C.J. Leary (23), 18. Chance Crum (15), 19. Tony Helton (12), 20. Austin Cory (20), 21. Wyatt Burks (19), 22. Daylan Chambers (17), 23. Kyle Johnson (24), 24. Brandon Mattox (22), 25. Gunnar Setser (2).
