DU QUOIN, Ill. — In Saturday’s 70th running of the Ted Horn 100 at the Du Quoin State Fairgrounds, it was “second verse, same as the first” for Justin Grant and his Hemelgarn Racing operation.
After pacing the field in practice, qualifying and the main event, Grant stamped himself into the record books once more as the 23rd driver to win champ car races under the AAA and/or USAC banner at both one-mile Illinois dirt tracks in a single season.
Grant joined Tony Bettenhausen (1951), Sam Hanks (1953), Jimmy Bryan (1955-56), Johnny Thomson (1958), A.J. Foyt (1964 & 1967), Al Unser (1970), Mario Andretti (1973-74), Gary Bettenhausen (1983), Jack Hewitt (1986-87-93), Chuck Gurney (1989-94-96), Paul White (2001), J.J. Yeley (2002), Tracy Hines (2006), Brian Tyler (2008) and Chris Windom (2018).
“It’s awfully, awfully special,” Grant exclaimed. “To sweep the miles, and to have my name on a list with names like that, is incredible. Sometimes it feels like I’ve written mine on there with a crayon. But I’m starting to get a little more used to the feeling and I’m certainly liking it.”
Despite starting from the pole, Grant fell back to second in the early stages before overtaking Logan Seavey on lap 32 and leading the remaining 69 laps and capture his second consecutive Ted Horn 100 victory.
Despite completing 98 percent of the laps, Grant had 100 percent of the field covered in what was his third-straight dirt mile victory with the series, the longest stretch of success by any driver since Kody Swanson scored four consecutive on the mile dirt tracks between 2014 and 2015.
Furthermore, Grant is now the first driver since Tracy Hines in 2006 to win the pole and the race at both Illinois dirt miles in the same season.
Grant cut his championship point deficit behind Kody Swanson to 12 after maximizing his output by gaining 76 at Du Quoin.
In what turned out to be the first rain-shortened USAC Silver Crown race at Du Quoin since the 1974 edition 50 years ago, weather was imminent throughout much of the day. That aspect, in addition to all of the other necessities of successfully navigating the scheduled 100-mile distance, weighed heavily on Grant’s gameplan.
“We raced with the rain in mind all day,” Grant revealed. “I pushed a little harder early and through the middle section of the race than I wanted to. But with what we had for the weather all day, we worked really hard to make sure we were quick time in hot laps in case we rained out qualifying, so we could get those points and start on the pole. We approached the race a little bit like, ‘hey, we might have rain toward the second half of this thing. Let’s not save it all for the last restart.’”
Much of the first half was marred by accidents that led to a Ted Horn 100 record five red-flag periods.
As far as the “almost” incidents, Grant nearly had one in his pursuit of Seavey for the lead on lap 23. After nearly getting into the back of Seavey’s rear bumper, Grant turned his wheel left, right, left as he swerved to avoid blasting Seavey.
The close call proved costly in the short term as Grant saw a one car length deficit balloon to eight car lengths. However, it came within a whisker of ending his day prematurely.
“I got down in there and I had to jump on the brakes late,” Grant recalled. “I had the left front down in the dust and the right front in the rubber and it hooked me back right. I was facing the wrong way! I thought, ‘oh boy, we’ve really done it here.’ I was really fortunate to get away with that one and regroup and have another shot at (Seavey).”
Once Grant gathered himself, he quickly found his footing again and slid past Seavey on the bottom of turn one on lap 33 to place himself in the race lead. Seavey fought back by cutting under Grant between the long sweeping turns of one and two to retake it, albeit briefly. Grant had the last word as he powered back around the outside of Seavey exiting turn two to take over the top spot, and for good.
“I felt like I could make a lot of right rear grip and stay really straight where guys were having to slide their cars, so I could run a really good pace and keep my right rear tire under me and that allowed me to make that move there,” Grant recounted. “I was able to dive in, get across him and still make enough grip out of the rubber to come back to it and stay with him. We were able to hold him down off two. These things on a mile with the fuel load take a minute to get wound up. It’s not like a sprint car where you can just fire down to the other end. You keep them where they can’t get back to the throttle quite as quick as quickly as they want to. When his motor bogs, you can roll up off there and beat him down to three.”
Swanson soon slotted into the second position on lap 42 after sweeping around the outside of Seavey on the back straight.
Grant possessed a 1.6 second lead at the time, but Swanson, a two-time winner of the Ted Horn in his own right in 2010 and 2017, soon made it a contest as he clamped down on Grant throughout the second half of the show.
“In these things, you want to lead them if you can,” Grant explained. “If you feel like you can get there at a decent pace, that’s kind of what you want to do because you can control the race a little bit. Kody was really good there at the end, but we had track position, and we could make a lot of roll speed through the center.”
Tire wear became an issue on lap 90 when fifth-running C.J. Leary fell by the wayside with a flat right-rear tire, which necessitated a caution.
At the very same moment, seventh running Chase Stockon’s right rear went kaput as did eighth running Shane Cockrum’s, sidelining three of the top seven in one fell swoop.
Mitchel Moles, running fourth with five miles to go, had his best Silver Crown run to date come to an end when he ran out of fuel and stopped on the main straightaway.
As the field prepared to face a green-white-checkered restart to decide the finish of the race, Mother Nature had other plans. As the rain continued to fall, cars were ultimately called into the pits. After a delay and an attempt at working in the dirt, it became clear that the race would not be able to continue.
The race was deemed complete with Justin Grant the victor over Kody Swanson, Briggs Danner, Jerry Coons Jr. and Logan Seavey.
Coons provided the feel good story of the day, finishing fourth in his 23rd career Ted Horn 100 start. It also came in the Bateman Racing team’s final Du Quoin start where they competed in their first race in 1982.
USAC Silver Crown National Championship, Du Quoin State Fairgrounds, Du Quoin, Ill., Aug. 31, 2024
HONEST ABE ROOFING QUALIFYING: 1. Justin Grant, 91, Hemelgarn-30.438; 2. Logan Seavey, 22, Rice/Abacus-30.476; 3. Briggs Danner, 10, DMW-30.622; 4. Mitchel Moles, 119, Reinbold/Underwood-30.636; 5. Kody Swanson, 77, Doran/Binks-30.702; 6. Trey Osborne, 81, BCR-30.982; 7. Kyle Steffens, 08, Steffens-31.103; 8. C.J. Leary, 6, Klatt-31.186; 9. Don Droud Jr., 8, Cornell-31.212; 10. Mario Clouser, 60, Legacy/Wilson-31.283; 11. Jerry Coons Jr., 55, Bateman-31.459; 12. Saban Bibent, 88, Fetter-31.597; 13. Jimmy Light, 118, Wingo-31.659; 14. Chris Urish, 177, Urish-31.773; 15. Shane Cockrum, 97, Lein-31.911; 16. Matt Goodnight, 24, Haggenbottom-32.205; 17. Chase Stockon, 69, Pink 69-32.288; 18. Danny Jennings, 61, Grace-32.461; 19. Korey Weyant, 99, Weyant-32.546; 20. Gregg Cory, 32, Williams/Cory-32.671; 21. Russ Gamester, 51, Gamester-32.777; 22. Chris Fetter, 15, Fetter-33.202; 23. Nathan Moore, 48, Thomas/Moore-33.214; 24. Dave Berkheimer, 31, Berkheimer-33.278; 25. Kip Hughes, 160, Hughes-34.096; 26. Danny Long, 44, Long-34.516; 27. Dave Peperak, 777, Peperak-35.152; 28. Brady Bacon, 9, Dyson-NT; 29. Casey Buckman, 25, C-Buck/Sachs-NT.
FEATURE: (100 laps, shortened to 98 due to rain, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Justin Grant (1), 2. Kody Swanson (5), 3. Briggs Danner (3), 4. Jerry Coons Jr. (11), 5. Logan Seavey (2), 6. Mario Clouser (10), 7. Kyle Steffens (7), 8. Chris Urish (14), 9. Matt Goodnight (16), 10. Chris Fetter (22), 11. Korey Weyant (19), 12. Gregg Cory (20), 13. Chase Stockon (17), 14. Kip Hughes (25), 15. Mitchel Moles (4), 16. Shane Cockrum (15), 17. C.J. Leary (8), 18. Saban Bibent (12), 19. Nathan Moore (23), 20. Danny Jennings (18), 21. Dave Berkheimer (24), 22. Russ Gamester (21), 23. Danny Long (26), 24. Brady Bacon (28), 25. Jimmy Light (13), 26. Trey Osborne (6), 27. Don Droud Jr. (9), 28. Dave Peperak (27).