ROSSBURG, Ohio — There once was a time in which Kyle Cummins admittedly struggled on half-mile tracks.
Those days are long gone.
In his 17th career Eldora USAC AMSOIL National Sprint Car feature start, the Princeton, Indiana, native finally conquered the half-mile dirt oval during Friday night’s #LetsRaceTwo Presented by LGMG opener, a victory worth $12,000.
Cummins captured the victory in dramatic fashion, losing the lead to Justin Grant on the white flag lap before ripping it right back on the 30th and final lap to earn his third feature victory of the USAC National Sprint Car season in his Petty Performance Racing/Avanti Windows & Doors – JUGO Superfoods/Mach-1/Stanton Chevy.
It took a long time to get to this point for Cummins, certainly on the half miles. He got one at Florida’s Volusia Speedway Park in 2025, then notched another at Indiana’s Terre Haute Action Track in April of this year. Now, he finds himself on the hallowed Eldora USAC win list.
“Eldora Speedway is something special,” Cummins stated. “It’s been on the list for a long time. I never came to win. I just came to try and survive. Like this year at Terre Haute, I showed up and decided I wanted to win. I didn’t want to just be riding around.”
Cummins’ 2025 campaign at Eldora was seemingly a harbinger of things to come. He finished on the podium in all three of his USAC National Sprint Car starts at the track that year, including a third in the spring, followed by a pair of runner-up finishes in September. Lest we mention the agonizing heartbreak of his near victory during #LetsRaceTwo in 2024 in which Robert Ballou erased a half-straightaway deficit on the final lap to nip Cummins at the line by a mere .016 seconds.
Chase Stockon held the lead from his outside front row position and remained there for the first five laps. But the third place starting Cummins reached the point on the sixth lap, first diving under Briggs Danner in turns three and four, then moments later, sliding past Stockon for the top spot in turn one.
With four laps remaining, Cummins was trouncing the field to the tune of six seconds ahead of Grant. However, that was quickly dissolved when Jakeb Boxell clobbered the turn one wall and flipped several times, catching major airtime in the process. In his first USAC National Sprint Car feature start, Boxell had moved up from 24th to 13th before the accident.
The incident also just happened to occur directly in front of Cummins who narrowly avoided contact. However, it appeared a piece of the carnage from Boxell’s accident struck Cummins’ sun visor / name plate that was affixed to his car, causing a bit of a vision obstruction as it slightly askewed itself from its normal placement on the upper right side of his frame.
“When he crashed, it smashed my visor in front of my face,” Cummins revealed. “I thought, ‘oh, I can deal with it.’ But when I took the green, I couldn’t even see the cushion. So, I knew it was going to be close there. I got a really good rhythm there and started feeling pretty good. Then, after that red, it kind of joggled stuff and I thought I’d be all right. As soon as we took the green, that thing was flapping in front of my face. All I needed was a couple laps here. If it would’ve been one more, I don’t know.”
On top off all that, Cummins full straightaway advantage and certain victory were all but gone. Now, he had Grant hot on his heels for the restart with three laps remaining. Grant stalked Cummins throughout lap 28, but coming to the white flag, Grant shot his shot, diving into turn three and sliding across the chrome of Cummins’ front bumper, seemingly within inches of sparking contact.
Cummins responded by turning down under Grant off turn four as Grant beat him to the start/finish line by about the width of credit card. Entering turn one for the final time, Cummins had the slider line set up to his advantage. There, he dove under Grant and slid himself all the way up to the turn two wall. That’s when the two made bumper-to-bumper contact. Grant ricocheted into the wall with his right rear tire, which thwarted all his momentum.
“Going down into three, I thought I got a good run, and all of a sudden, I saw him and was like, ‘I have to try to make a run,’ Cummins recalled. “I actually peeled off one time under (Robert) Ballou and got a pretty good run down the straightaway. I thought, ‘okay, I’ll do that and I can beat him. Going in, I’m like, ‘oh, I got him, I got him.’ Then, he’s turning under, and I’m going to take it in there. I did that once on a lapped car and about got in the fence and about tore the ladder off it.”
Cummins crossed the finish line 1.358 seconds to the good as the winner. Bacon capitalized on the last lap kerfuffle to grab a second-place finish by a wheel over Grant. Danner took fourth while Stockon rounded out the top five.
Cummins’ 33rd career USAC National Sprint Car feature triumph moved him past Rollie Beale for sole possession of 17th place on the all-time series win list.
“That’s what Eldora is all about,” Cummins exclaimed. “Justin Grant is one of the best there is here. I felt like I was able to put it on the fence like you need to and make some good runs there. The last couple laps, I was just holding on, but he got a good run there. I got a pretty good diamond, and it’s the last lap at Eldora, so we just sailed in there. I thought he would turn down the hill and get back past me, and I think we bumped a little bit there. That’s for the win, baby. It’s hard racing and it’s tough to get them, especially being out in the lead for a while.”
Meanwhile, Grant reached a milestone by becoming just the seventh driver to reach 500 career USAC National Sprint Car feature starts, joining Dave Darland (797), Robert Ballou (560), Brady Bacon (543), Chase Stockon (532), C.J. Leary (508), and Kevin Thomas Jr. (503).
USAC AMSOIL Sprint Car National Championship, Eldora Speedway, Rossburg, Ohio, May 15, 2026
LEARNLAB QUALIFYING: 1. Justin Grant, 4, TOPP-15.875; 2. Logan Seavey, 57, Abacus-15.892; 3. Jake Swanson, 5T, Daming Swanson-15.999; 4. Kyle Cummins, 3p, Petty-16.042; 5. Chase Stockon, 92, Sertich-16.149; 6. Briggs Danner, 39, Hogue-16.153; 7. Kevin Thomas Jr., 3R, Rock Steady-16.201; 8. Brady Bacon, 20, Dyson-16.307; 9. Mitchel Moles, 19AZ, Reinbold/Underwood-16.328; 10. Steven Snyder Jr., 87, CBI/Spire-16.337; 11. Hayden Reinbold, 19, Reinbold/Underwood-16.360; 12. Trey Osborne, 6T, Osborne-16.360; 13. C.J. Leary, 53, Fox-16.439; 14. Jadon Rogers, 14, Rogers-16.446; 15. Robert Ballou, 12, Ballou-16.470; 16. Max Adams, 40, Hery-16.535; 17. Troy Carey, 45N, Carey-16.542; 18. Hunter Maddox, 24, Maddox-16.571; 19. Kobe Simpson, 21K, Simpson-16.596; 20. Logan Calderwood, 6, Calderwood-16.625; 21. Shawn Westerfeld, 4J, Fischesser/Owen-16.631; 22. Cale Coons, 63, Dooling/Curb-Agajanian-16.637; 23. Nate Carle, 14c, Carle-16.685; 24. Zack Pretorius, 9z, Pretorius-16.692; 25. Harley Burns, 16, Britt Aero-16.811; 26. Tony Helton, 87H, Helton-16.930; 27. Todd Hobson, 44, Soudrette-16.953; 28. Braxton Cummings, 71B, Cummings-17.053; 29. Jakeb Boxell, 54, Westfall-17.143; 30. Ryan Barr, 21B, Barr-17.153; 31. Paul Dues, 87x, Dues-17.241; 32. Brandon Mattox, 28, Mattox-NT.
K1 RACEGEAR FIRST HEAT: (8 laps, top-5 transfer to the feature, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Justin Grant (6), 2. Mitchel Moles (4), 3. C.J. Leary (3), 4. Chase Stockon (5), 5. Troy Carey (2), 6. Shawn Westerfeld (1), 7. Harley Burns (7), 8. Jakeb Boxell (8). NT
TJ FORGED SECOND HEAT: (8 laps, top-5 transfer to the feature, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Cale Coons (1), 2. Steven Snyder Jr. (4), 3. Briggs Danner (5), 4. Logan Seavey (6), 5. Jadon Rogers (3), 6. Hunter Maddox (2), 7. Tony Helton (7), 8. Ryan Barr (8). 2:16.167
K & N FILTERS THIRD HEAT: (8 laps, top-5 transfer to the feature, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Robert Ballou (3), 2. Jake Swanson (5), 3. Kobe Simpson (2), 4. Kevin Thomas Jr. (4), 5. Nate Carle (1), 6. Todd Hobson (6), 7. Paul Dues (7), 8. Hayden Reinbold (8). 2:19.388
INDY POWERSPORTS FOURTH HEAT: (8 laps, top-5 transfer to the feature, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Brady Bacon (5), 2. Trey Osborne (4), 3. Kyle Cummins (6), 4. Zack Pretorius (1), 5. Logan Calderwood (2), 6. Max Adams (3), 7. Braxton Cummings (7), 8. Brandon Mattox (8). 2:23.336
FIVE STAR BODIES SEMI: (12 laps, top-4 transfer to the feature, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Jakeb Boxell (10), 2. Max Adams (2), 3. Todd Hobson (5), 4. Braxton Cummings (8), 5. Hayden Reinbold (1), 6. Paul Dues (9), 7. Hunter Maddox (3), 8. Shawn Westerfeld (4), 9. Harley Burns (6), 10. Tony Helton (7), 11. Brandon Mattox (12). 3:43.194
FEATURE: (30 laps, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Kyle Cummins (3), 2. Brady Bacon (7), 3. Justin Grant (6), 4. Briggs Danner (1), 5. Chase Stockon (2), 6. Logan Seavey (5), 7. Kevin Thomas Jr. (10), 8. C.J. Leary (14), 9. Todd Hobson (22), 10. Steven Snyder Jr. (12), 11. Braxton Cummings (23), 12. Trey Osborne (13), 13. Jake Swanson (4), 14. Robert Ballou (8), 15. Mitchel Moles (11), 16. Max Adams (16), 17. Logan Calderwood (19), 18. Cale Coons (9), 19. Hayden Reinbold (25-P), 20. Zack Pretorius (21), 21. Jadon Rogers (15), 22. Troy Carey (17), 23. Nate Carle (20), 24. Jakeb Boxell (24), 25. Kobe Simpson (18).
