INDIANAPOLIS — In his first race as USAC AMSOIL National Sprint Car racing’s career win king, Justin Grant provided an encore performance on Friday night during the third running of the Ashlea Albertson Memorial at Circle City Raceway.
One week after surpassing Dave Darland at the top of the list with series victory No. 63, the Ione, California native added one more to the record book with triumph No. 64 in his TOPP Motorsports/NOS Energy Drink – TOPP Industries – LA Poly/Maxim/Kistler Chevy.
Starting third, Grant raced his way into the lead by lap nine, then led five laps before relinquishing the top spot momentarily to Gunnar Setser. Two laps later, Grant fought his way back to the front, then led the remaining 15 circuits of the 30-lapper to earn his first career win at the quarter-mile dirt oval.
Circle City hasn’t been all that kind to Grant over the years. In 10 career series starts at CCR, he held an uncharacteristically subpar average finish of 12.1. Furthermore, his 10th victory of the 2025 USAC National Sprint Car campaign is the second time he’s reached double figures in a single season.
“This car has been so, so good lately; it’s been so fun,” Grant complimented. “We usually dread coming to Circle City. I didn’t think we’d ever win a race here. But we found some things earlier this year here, and then at The Dirt Track at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, we were really good and I feel like it’s a really similar surface to here.”
He’s just the third driver in series history to have multiple seasons of 10 or more USAC National Sprint Car victories: Larry Dickson (1968 and 1970), Pancho Carter (1976 and 1977) and Justin Grant (2023 and 2025).
Grant was sporting a bit of a different look at Circle City. After a crash at Indiana’s Lawrenceburg Speedway a month-and-a-half ago, he was fitted with a hard cast to assist in the healing process of his broken left foot. Although still hobbling around with the aid of a pair of crutches, Grant was sans cast for the first time since late July.
“I was able to get out of my cast this week,” Grant revealed. “I thought my foot wasn’t hurting, but once I got it out of the cast, it was hurting again. I felt like this one would’ve been tough in the cast. When I could be 75 percent in the brake pedal and 100 percent in the throttle pedal smashing around Kokomo, I could do that. Being 20 percent in both of them was really, really hard for me, which you had to do a lot of here tonight.”
Setser, who made his USAC National Sprint Car debut in this very race at this track one year ago, shuffled out to the initial lead from his pole starting position.
Entering the first turn on the opening lap, outside front row starter Jake Swanson snagged the cushion with his right rear tire, which whiplashed the car around as he got back on the gas and motored away.
Swanson’s slight plight seemed to be a case of no harm, no foul after he drove around the outside of Setser for the lead in turn two on the seventh lap. However, Swanson’s fun at the front came to an abrupt halt one lap later.
As Swanson exited turn four, his rear axle suddenly snapped. Swanson ultimately coasted to a stop at the end of the front straightaway, but before coming to a rest, Grant nearly saw his night upended at that moment, getting airborne after ramping over Swanson’s left rear wheel. Grant kept on keeping on while Swanson was done for the night.
One lap after resuming, trouble unfolded in turn four as a mechanism in Jadon Rogers’ steering malfunctioned, sending him straight across the racetrack and into Kayla Roell as the two jockeyed for the 15th spot. After contact with Roell, Rogers flipped, finishing his night for good.
Just prior to the red flag, Grant and Kevin Thomas Jr. had slid their way into the top two spots past Setser in turns one and two. But with the stoppage, the race reverted back to the last completed lap, sending Setser back to the front of the line.
One completed lap following the ensuing restart, Grant got enough momentum rolling on the high side to drive by Setser and lead lap nine.
After a flurry of cautions, Grant altered his line on a restart just before midway after receiving a signal but then altered the plan when it proved to be not as effective as what he was already doing.
“Anytime there’s a lane above (the cushion), Jeff Walker is standing over there in the pit stands going, ‘get above it buddy,’ so I thought I’d give it a try,” Grant explained. “I was kind of doing it in turns three and four in that little bit of a slick groove. Then I got down in turns one and two and I felt like I was making better speed but I was getting more pressure from Mitchel (Moles) and I was able to see the video board and could tell that I really wasn’t getting away from them.”
As Grant was fighting off Moles to his outside, Setser was cruising along the bottom and made his way back to the point to pace laps 14-15. That’s when Grant got back to the basics.
“When I just got back to slipping in and running the curb nice, they took the camera off me, so I figured we must’ve been all right,” Grant said of the back straightaway video board he’d taken quick ganders at throughout the race. I really just needed to settle down and not get cute; just go run the cushion. It looked like it was getting clear above it, so I kind of searched around and felt like I was better off just doing it pretty vanilla.”
Grant hit the cushion precisely on lap 16 and bolted around the outside of Setser to reassume the lead. Moles followed suit into second as Setser fell back to third while practically the entire top-five ran under a blanket with Briggs Danner in fourth and Thomas fifth. For Grant, the method worked like a charm.
“The laps I’d burn down in, I could drive this thing a lot harder than I realized I could,” Grant said. “I’d get a good run off four and I’d burn down into one and I thought, ‘oh boy, I’ve overshot it here and I’m going to crash.’ It ended up ripping right through there, and really, the more pedal I was able to run at it, the more stable it got.”
Moles was able to draw within a couple car lengths of Grant getting into the corners, but over the final two laps, Moles had to scrape and claw his way back into second as the pesky Danner relentlessly fought for the spot.
Grant jetted away scot-free to cross the line as the winner 0.746 seconds ahead of Moles with Danner third, Chase Stockon fourth and Setser fifth.
USAC AMSOIL Sprint Car National Championship, Circle City Raceway, Indianapolis, Ind., Sept. 12, 2025
HONEST ABE ROOFING QUALIFYING: 1. Mitchel Moles, 19AZ, Reinbold/Underwood-11.833; 2. Kyle Cummins, 3p, Petty-11.922; 3. Kevin Thomas Jr., 3R, Rock Steady-11.950; 4. Justin Grant, 4, TOPP-11.962; 5. Jake Swanson, 5T, Daming Swanson-12.001; 6. Gunnar Setser, 5G, KO-12.011; 7. Logan Seavey, 57, Abacus-12.015; 8. Briggs Danner, 39, Hogue-12.107; 9. Ricky Lewis, 41, Lewis-12.115; 10. C.J. Leary, 21AZ, Team AZ/Curb-Agajanian-12.138; 11. Chase Stockon, 92, Sertich-12.176; 12. Chance Crum, 83c, Crum-12.181; 13. Austin Nigh, 97, Nigh-12.260; 14. Hayden Reinbold, 19, Reinbold/Underwood-12.267; 15. Kayla Roell, 4K, Roell-12.280; 16. Shane Cottle, 34, Olson-12.321; 17. Jadon Rogers, 5, Baldwin/Fox-12.350; 18. Max Adams, 23s, Simon-12.375; 19. Zack Pretorius, 9z, Pretorius-12.375; 20. Logan Prickett, 37, Prickett-12.404; 21. Todd Hobson, 44, Soudrette-12.413; 22. Carson Garrett, 2E, Epperson-12.433; 23. Matt Westfall, 54, Westfall-12.506; 24. Gabriel Gilbert, 10G, GGR-12.530; 25. Rylan Gray, 06, Gray-12.539; 26. Devan Myers, 75, Myers-12.549; 27. Kale Drake, 2B, 2B Racing-12.574; 28. Beau Brandon, 21, Hajduk-12.593; 29. Matt Goodnight, 39G, Goodnight-12.792; 30. Rob Caho Jr., 78, Caho-12.853; 31. Tony Paquette, 55, Paquette-13.574; 32. Wyatt Burks, 16K, Knight-NT.
CAR IQ FIRST HEAT: (10 laps, top-5 transfer to the feature) 1. Ricky Lewis, 2. Todd Hobson, 3. Mitchel Moles, 4. Jake Swanson, 5. Rylan Gray, 6. Austin Nigh, 7. Matt Goodnight, 8. Jadon Rogers. NT
K1 RACEGEAR SECOND HEAT: (10 laps, top-5 transfer to the feature) 1. Kyle Cummins, 2. Carson Garrett, 3. C.J. Leary, 4. Hayden Reinbold, 5. Gunnar Setser, 6. Devan Myers, 7. Rob Caho Jr., 8. Max Adams. 2:06.687
USAC GEAR THIRD HEAT: (10 laps, top-5 transfer to the feature) 1. Chase Stockon, 2. Logan Seavey, 3. Kevin Thomas Jr., 4. Matt Westfall, 5. Kale Drake, 6. Kayla Roell, 7. Zack Pretorius, 8. Tony Paquette. NT
COOKOUT FOURTH HEAT: (10 laps, top-5 transfer to the feature) 1. Briggs Danner, 2. Shane Cottle, 3. Chance Crum, 4. Justin Grant, 5. Beau Brandon, 6. Logan Prickett, 7. Gabriel Gilbert, 8. Wyatt Burks. 2:11.492
ELLIOTT’S CUSTOM TRAILERS & CARTS SEMI: (12 laps, top-4 transfer to the feature) 1. Kayla Roell, 2. Jadon Rogers, 3. Zack Pretorius, 4. Matt Goodnight, 5. Gabriel Gilbert, 6. Austin Nigh, 7. Tony Paquette, 8. Rob Caho Jr., 9. Devan Myers, 10. Wyatt Burks, 11. Logan Prickett. NT
FEATURE: (30 laps, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Justin Grant (3), 2. Mitchel Moles (6), 3. Briggs Danner (7), 4. Chase Stockon (12), 5. Gunnar Setser (1), 6. C.J. Leary (10), 7. Ricky Lewis (8), 8. Kevin Thomas Jr. (4), 9. Kyle Cummins (5), 10. Logan Seavey (9), 11. Todd Hobson (17), 12. Chance Crum (16), 13. Carson Garrett (18), 14. Rylan Gray (20), 15. Kayla Roell (13), 16. Zack Pretorius (21), 17. Hayden Reinbold (11), 18. Kale Drake (22), 19. Shane Cottle (14), 20. Matt Goodnight (23), 21. Matt Westfall (19), 22. Beau Brandon (24), 23. Jake Swanson (2), 24. Jadon Rogers (15).
