MEEKER, Okla. — After earning back-to-back USAC AMSOIL Sprint Car National Championships in 2022 and 2023, Justin Grant had become accustomed to finishing the season on a high note.
However, after an admittedly uneven and inconsistent year featuring a multitude of highs and lows, the Ione, Calif., native still managed to strike the right chord to wrap up the campaign during Saturday night’s season finale for the series at Red Dirt Raceway.
Far out of the championship equation this time around, Grant’s sole focus was zeroed in on securing the bag in the $10,000-to-win event aboard his TOPP Motorsports/NOS Energy Drink – Bow Foundation – TOPP Industries/Maxim/Kistler Chevy.
That he did, capping a season with nine feature wins, and remarkably, a ninth-place finish in the series’ final standings. His nine victories mark the second best output of his career following an 11-win splurge in 2023.
Saturday also proved to be yet another performance you’ve come to expect from Grant as he slid past Robert Ballou for the lead on a restart just prior to the halfway point of the 30-lapper before going on to lead the final 19 laps en route to his 54th career series win, third on the all-time list.
“We’ve won nine races but it’s been a heck of a struggle this year,” Grant acknowledged. “It’s been really tough, but we’ve finally hit on some things that gave me some feel and started to give me some comfort in the car. (Jeff Walker) and Nic (Mansker) have been working their tails off. I’ve been driving J-Dub nuts all year just trying to get comfortable. Tires change and things change, and I just lost the feel for the car. We could win races but it was only when the track kind of fell into our favor. Tonight is really what we had struggled with all year – slick to a curb on the wall, which is what I love to do, so that’s been super frustrating. I’ve been beating my head against the wall, and it feels like we’ve finally figured it out in time to roll into next year.”
Grant became just the fourth driver in USAC Sprint Car history to win both the season opener and the season closer, joining the likes of Pat O’Connor (1956), Steve Butler (1986) and Brady Bacon (2020).
Early on, the pace was controlled by another past USAC National Sprint Car champion, Robert Ballou. Starting from the pole, Ballou broke away from the pack while Logan Seavey slotted into the second spot before being overhauled by Daison Pursley for the position on the second go around on the quarter-mile dirt oval.
By lap 10, Ballou had already reached the tail end of the 25-car field. From there, he sliced, diced and julienned a pathway through two and three-wide traffic to escape Pursley’s pursuit for the time being. At that moment, fourth starting Grant emerged in the hunt. At the exit of turn four on the 11th lap, Grant and Pursley made wheel-to-wheel contact. Pursley took the brunt of it and dropped to third while Grant stepped up another spot in the running order to third.
“It was pretty tight and it was awfully slick across there,” Grant explained. “It was hard to get much of a drive to really clear a guy. As soon as you peeled off the wall, they’d start driving back away from you. When you’re trying to throw sliders on a guy who’s getting away from you into the corner, it’s difficult to get them cleared. I got into Daison a little bit there; I think I got the back bumper, but they were close. There were a couple of them there where I about killed the motor coming across and some of the sliders on lappers were pretty sketchy coming across there.
Moments later, after the completion of the lap by the leaders, 24th running Matt Sherrell spun to a stop at the edge of the infield between turns three and four, thus, bringing out the yellow flag, while also making the path void of traffic and placing Grant right on the rear bumper of Ballou for the ensuing restart.
Grant spared little time in getting right to work as he slid Ballou in turn one to take over the lead once and for all while Ballou was faced with having to shake off the hounding pursuit of Pursley in the tussle for second.
“He started the race so slow down there that I thought he was going to stay in the moisture down the front stretch and slide himself into one,” Grant concluded of Ballou. “He took off from the moisture and fired right into the slick under the flag stand, and you’re just a sitting duck at that point. I wasn’t really planning on sliding him into one. I was going to get up and follow him. I didn’t want to get caught in the melee and get drug back into the scrum. When he did that, I thought, well, if you’re going to tee it up, I’m going to hit it.”
Around 10 to go, Grant now found himself in the throngs of gridlocked lap traffic. At first, he was at ease as he used the high side to move around and ahead of the tail-enders. However, a bevy of high/low traffic awaited on his route. Those compounding factors allowed Ballou to reel himself back into contention, to within four car lengths of Grant with just eight laps to go.
Grant’s swift split-second slide job on the lapped car of Cooper Sullivan in turns one and two on lap 25 proved decisive in two fashions. First, it provided Grant a clear coast on the back straightaway. Secondly, Ballou became entrapped, stifled and suppressed behind Sullivan momentarily, allowing Grant to break the race open with just five-and-a-half laps remaining.
The fact is, neither Grant nor Ballou ever totally completely escaped their plight in traffic. They managed their way through successfully, but when all was said and done, Grant reached the stripe 1.688 seconds ahead of Ballou with Pursley third, USAC National Sprint Car champion Logan Seavey fourth and C.J. Leary fifth.
“The big move of the race I feel like was getting by Daison,” Grant explained. “Daison is a heck of a racecar driver and he’s obviously good here at Meeker. I was happy to get him put away pretty early, and then after that, I just went to work. It was a heck of a lot of fun. I wanted to go win a race. I never have been accused of making a lot of friends out here in this deal. If you’re going to get berated for it, you might as well throw it and make some money while you’re at it.”
USAC AMSOIL Sprint Car National Championship, Red Dirt Raceway, Meeker, Okla., Oct. 26, 2024
HONEST ABE ROOFING QUALIFYING: 1. C.J. Leary, 15x, BGE Dougherty-12.935; 2. Kevin Thomas Jr., 3R, Rock Steady-13.030; 3. Justin Grant, 4, TOPP-13.118; 4. Logan Seavey, 57, Abacus-13.127; 5. Daison Pursley, 21AZ, Team AZ/Curb-Agajanian-13.160; 6. Robert Ballou, 12, Ballou-13.207; 7. Xavier Doney, 74, Doney/Lawson-13.217; 8. Kyle Cummins, 3p, Petty-13.242; 9. Matt Westfall, 33m, Marshall-13.300; 10. Kobe Simpson, 21K, Simpson-13.310; 11. Wesley Smith, 2B, 2B Racing-13.372; 12. Mitchel Moles, 19AZ, Reinbold/Underwood-13.400; 13. Carson Garrett, 15, BGE Dougherty-13.401; 14. Hayden Reinbold, 19, Reinbold/Underwood-13.432; 15. Brady Bacon, 69, Dynamics-13.445; 16. Kyle Jones, 79, Hall-13.478; 17. Hunter Maddox, 24m, Maddox-13.517; 18. Weston Gorham, 71w, Gorham-13.559; 19. Colt Treharn, 77, Treharn-13.741; 20. Matt Sherrell, 15m, Graham-13.745; 21. R.J. Miller, 34, Miller-13.808; 22. Wyatt Burks, 11w, Burks-13.826; 23. Ty Hulsey, 24H, Risley-13.914; 24. Joe Wood Jr., 03, Wood-13.979; 25. Paul White, 1, Wade-13.980; 26. Cooper Sullivan, 79F, Fry-14.029; 27. Craig Carroll, 24c, Risley-14.044; 28. Brock Cottrell, 5B, Cottrell-14.115; 29. Brennon Marshall, 43, Miller-14.575.
SIMPSON RACE PRODUCTS FIRST HEAT: (10 laps, top-5 transfer to the feature) 1. Matt Westfall, 2. Daison Pursley, 3. C.J. Leary, 4. Hunter Maddox, 5. R.J. Miller, 6. Paul White, 7. Carson Garrett. 2:14.442 (New Track Record)
ROD END SUPPLY SECOND HEAT: (10 laps, top-5 transfer to the feature) 1. Robert Ballou, 2. Weston Gorham, 3. Hayden Reinbold, 4. Kevin Thomas Jr., 5. Cooper Sullivan, 6. Wyatt Burks, 7. Kobe Simpson. NT
T.J. FORGED THIRD HEAT: (10 laps, top-5 transfer to the feature) 1. Brady Bacon, 2. Justin Grant, 3. Xavier Doney, 4. Wesley Smith, 5. Ty Hulsey, 6. Craig Carroll, 7. Colt Treharn. 2:17.425
CAR IQ FOURTH HEAT: (10 laps, top-5 transfer to the feature) 1. Mitchel Moles, 2. Logan Seavey, 3. Kyle Cummins, 4. Kyle Jones, 5. Matt Sherrell, 6. Joe Wood Jr., 7. Brock Cottrell. 2:19.896
ELLIOTT’S CUSTOM TRAILERS & CARTS SEMI: (8 laps, top-4 transfer to the feature) 1. Kobe Simpson, 2. Joe Wood Jr., 3. Paul White, 4. Craig Carroll, 5. Colt Treharn, 6. Brock Cottrell. 1:55.343 (Track Record)
FEATURE: (30 laps, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Justin Grant (4), 2. Robert Ballou (1), 3. Daison Pursley (2), 4. Logan Seavey (3), 5. C.J. Leary (6), 6. Kevin Thomas Jr. (5), 7. Brady Bacon (9), 8. Kyle Cummins (11), 9. Wesley Smith (12), 10. Matt Westfall (7), 11. Xavier Doney (10), 12. Mitchel Moles (8), 13. Kyle Jones (14), 14. Kobe Simpson (16), 15. Hunter Maddox (15), 16. Ty Hulsey (20), 17. Joe Wood Jr. (21), 18. Cooper Sullivan (23), 19. Weston Gorham (17), 20. Craig Carroll (24), 21. Hayden Reinbold (13), 22. R.J. Miller (19), 23. Paul White (22), 24. Matt Sherrell (18), 25. Carson Garrett (25-P). NT