INDIANAPOLIS — On Friday night at The Dirt Track at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Justin Grant followed suit of RMS Racing teammate Thomas Meseraull.
Meseraull had topped the opening night prelim at the Driven2SaveLives BC39 on Thursday — and did so in dominant fashion — scoring his first USAC National Midget Championship win of the season.
About 24 hours later, Grant put in a near-identical performance.
The No. 2 started by setting quick time in hot laps, won his heat race by nearly half-a-track lead, took control in the qualifier and started fifth in the A main. At the wave of the green flag in the 30-lap feature, Keith Kunz Motorsports driver Emerson Axsom surged past polesitter Cannon McIntosh to take the early lead.
Axsom proceeded to lead the next 19 laps at the quarter-mile dirt oval.
Meanwhile, Grant was charging hard through the field, nudging the No. 40x of Zach Wigal out of the way to take third. Next on his radar was McIntosh, who he slipped by with 13 laps to go. That set up a head-to-head battle between Axsom and Grant, but the No. 2 made quick work of the youngster and took the lead with 10 laps to go.
It was smooth sailing from then on for the RMS Racing driver, who went on to collect his first victory of the USAC season at the checkered flag.
“It feels really good to win. It’s a split field, so we didn’t beat everybody, but we beat some good guys,” Grant said. “You don’t have the year we’ve had and been as bad as we’ve been, and then come in here and win. I think it really speaks to the people I have behind me, and the people Thomas (Meseraull) has behind him, and their ability to keep our confidence high even when we’re not running well.”
Due to a last lap bobble from Axsom, McIntosh was able to bring his No. 86 Chad Boat Industries midget home in second, locking him into Saturday’s finale. It was his first race with the team, as he recently announced his transfer to CBI from Dave Mac-Dalby Motorsports for the remainder of the USAC season.
“All night, we had really good long run speed. The feature there, I feel like I struggled a little bit in the short runs and that’s what cost us,” McIntosh said. “It was kind of a learning curve, running the cushion in this thing, because we didn’t really run the cushion until the feature. Just a change for me, being in a different car against the cushion.”
While disappointed to let second slip away, Axsom held his head high walking away from Friday’s prelim, relieved to lock his No. 68 into the $20,039-to-win finale.
Similar to McIntosh, it was also his debut race with a new team — this one being KKM.
“I knew it was on me. They have five other cars to send out on the race track, so when you have that much data coming back in, you know your car is going to be really good,” Axsom said. “Coming to the white, I plugged it into the fence and Cannon (McIntosh) got around me. Was able to hold onto third there, even with the mistake.”
Tanner Thorson and Ryan Timms completed the top five. Karter Sarff, Logan Seavey, Ethan Mitchell, Daison Pursley and Jake Andreotti rounded out the top 10 during Friday night’s prelim action.
Zach Daum won the 25-lap Stoops Pursuit race.
The Boxscore
USAC NOS Energy Drink Midget National Championship, The Dirt Track at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Indianapolis, Ind., Sept. 29, 2023
SIMPSON RACE PRODUCTS FIRST HEAT: (8 laps, passing points) 1. Ethan Mitchell (#19m Bundy Built), 2. Cannon McIntosh (#86 CBI), 3. Logan Seavey (#57 Abacus), 4. Austin Barnhill (#17B Dave Mac-Dalby), 5. Isaac Chapple (#6 Hall), 6. Landon Brooks (#1D RAMCO), 7. Jeff Schindler (#8x Schindler), 8. Ian Creager (#36 Creager), 9. Mark McMahill (#10c MWR). NT
ROD END SUPPLY SECOND HEAT: (8 laps, passing points) 1. Zach Daum (#7p RAMCO), 2. Daison Pursley (#19 Reinbold-Underwood), 3. Brady Bacon (#21H TKH), 4. Ryan Timms (#67 Kunz/Curb-Agajanian), 5. Jake Andreotti (#25m Malloy), 6. Gavin Miller (#97 Kunz/Curb-Agajanian), 7. Bryan Stanfill (#75AU Griffiths), 8. Aaron Leffel (#11L Taylor), 9. Scott Orr (#5s Hodge). NT
T.J. FORGED THIRD HEAT: (8 laps, passing points) 1. Justin Grant (#2 RMS), 2. Tanner Thorson (#88 Thorson), 3. Zach Wigal (#40x Mounce-Stout), 4. Daniel Robinson (#57A RAB), 5. Mitchell Davis (#56 O’Dell), 6. Scott Evans (#118 Evans), 7. Wes Pinkerton (#9 Pinkerton), 8. Connor Wolf (#1G RAMCO). NT
CAR IQ FOURTH HEAT: (8 laps, passing points) 1. Karter Sarff (#21K Sarff), 2. Emerson Axsom (#68 Kunz/Curb-Agajanian), 3. Clinton Boyles (#11 Beierle), 4. Trevor Cline (#55 Cline), 5. Jake Bubak (#27B Bourke), 6. Justin Zimmerman (#1z Zimmerman), 7. Don O’Keefe Jr. (#99 LOK/Carson-Segur), 8. Kenney Johnson (#46 Johnson). NT
SIMPSON RACE PRODUCTS FIRST QUALIFIER: (10 laps, passing points) 1. Justin Grant, 2. Cannon McIntosh, 3. Jake Andreotti, 4. Jake Bubak, 5. Scott Evans, 6. Ian Creager, 7. Justin Zimmerman, 8. Austin Barnhill. NT
ROD END SUPPLY SECOND QUALIFIER: (10 laps, passing points) 1. Brady Bacon, 2. Logan Seavey, 3. Karter Sarff, 4. Daison Pursley, 5. Landon Brooks, 6. Daniel Robinson, 7. Bryan Stanfill, 8. Connor Wolf, 9. Scott Orr. NT
T.J. FORGED THIRD QUALIFIER: (10 laps, passing points) 1. Gavin Miller, 2. Zach Wigal, 3. Trevor Cline, 4. Ethan Mitchell, 5. Tanner Thorson, 6. Clinton Boyles, 7. Kenney Johnson, 8. Don O’Keefe Jr. NT
CAR IQ FOURTH QUALIFIER: (10 laps, passing points) 1. Zach Daum, 2. Emerson Axsom, 3. Ryan Timms, 4. Mitchell Davis, 5. Isaac Chapple, 6. Jeff Schindler, 7. Aaron Leffel, 8. Wes Pinkerton. NT
ELLIOTT’S CUSTOM TRAILERS & CARTS SEMI: (12 laps, top-6 transfer to the feature) 1. Clinton Boyles, 2. Jake Bubak, 3. Daniel Robinson, 4. Isaac Chapple, 5. Justin Zimmerman, 6. Kenney Johnson, 7. Aaron Leffel, 8. Jeff Schindler, 9. Bryan Stanfill, 10. Don O’Keefe Jr., 11. Scott Evans, 12. Wes Pinkerton, 13. Ian Creager, 14. Austin Barnhill, 15. Mark McMahill, 16. Scott Orr, 17. Connor Wolf. NT
FEATURE: (30 laps, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Justin Grant (5), 2. Cannon McIntosh (1), 3. Emerson Axsom (2), 4. Tanner Thorson (8), 5. Ryan Timms (9), 6. Karter Sarff (3), 7. Logan Seavey (11), 8. Ethan Mitchell (10), 9. Daison Pursley (12), 10. Jake Andreotti (13), 11. Jake Bubak (18), 12. Mitchell Davis (16), 13. Justin Zimmerman (21), 14. Gavin Miller (14), 15. Zach Daum (6), 16. Clinton Boyles (17), 17. Trevor Cline (15), 18. Isaac Chapple (20), 19. Kenney Johnson (22), 20. Daniel Robinson (19), 21. Zach Wigal (7), 22. Brady Bacon (4). NT
STOOPS PURSUIT: (25 laps, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Zach Daum (10), 2. Ethan Mitchell (2), 3. Cannon McIntosh (17), 4. Emerson Axsom (19), 5. Logan Seavey (8), 6. Daniel Whitley (#58 Abacus) (20), 7. Karter Sarff (15), 8. C.J. Leary (#14 Legacy) (23), 9. Mitchel Moles (#19T Reinbold-Underwood) (22), 10. Kaylee Bryson (#89 CBI) (21), 11. Kameron Key (#21J TKH) (3), 12. Kyle Jones (#7m RAMCO) (6), 13. Jade Avedisian (#71 Kunz/Curb-Agajanian) (7), 14. Tanner Thorson (18), 15. Gavin Miller (1), 16. Ryan Timms (12), 17. Bryant Wiedeman (#81 CBI) (4), 18. Chase McDermand (#40 Mounce-Stout) (16), 19. Kevin Thomas Jr. (#1 Crouch) (5), 20. Taylor Reimer (#25K Kunz/Curb-Agajanian) (9), 21. Hayden Reinbold (#19AZ Reinbold-Underwood) (13), 22. Brady Bacon (14), 23. Daison Pursley (11).