HAUBSTADT, Ind. — Justin Grant won the night while Kyle Cummins won the week after all was said and done during Saturday night’s 39th annual USAC NOS Energy Drink Indiana Sprint Week Presented by K & N Filters finale at Tri-State Speedway.
Grant from seventh starting position before passing Harley Burns for the race lead on lap 18, then led the final 13 circuits to capture his third victory of the nine-race Indiana Sprint Week series.
Cummins (finished the race third, but earned enough points to secure his first USAC Indiana Sprint Week championship by a mere seven points over Grant.
Grant’s victory was the fourth of his career at Tri-State’s quarter-mile dirt oval at the wheel of his TOPP Motorsports/NOS Energy Drink – TOPP Industries – LA Poly/Maxim/Stanton Chevy.
Grant became the first driver to reach 70 USAC AMSOIL Sprint Car National Championship feature victories. However, in victory lane, he was greeted by a raucous reaction from patrons who took umbrage with an incident that occurred during a heat race when he and Ballou collided in turn three, sending Ballou flipping wildly, which ultimately sidelined Ballou for the remainder of the program, one night after winning at Bloomington, and exactly one year to the day after breaking his back in a crash at Bloomington.
As for Grant, he explained his view of the altercation.
“I hate that he got upside down there,” Grant said. “I felt like I was clear up alongside him off two and all the way down the backstretch and parked it on the first infield tire. I felt like he had a whole racetrack above him and he tried to get to the first infield tire through the side of my race car. So, I don’t know what I could have done there other than just disappearing out of his way. You’ve got to go in the heat races and they won’t see it that way. Robert might not either. I’m sorry he got torn up there. I just don’t know what else I could do. I’m far enough up along there. I didn’t bomb in on him or anything. I was under him all the way off two.
“I haven’t talked to him yet but I’ll catch up with him later,” Grant continued. “Hopefully, we can work that out and figure out who was in the wrong there. It’s a shame any time something gets torn up. I, of all people, didn’t want him to get torn up there because I needed him to transfer so he could try and keep one guy out and get me on the front row. I’m a jerk and whatever, and you can think what you want me but it wasn’t in my best interest to do that. So I certainly didn’t want to do it.”
As for Cummins, his long awaited first career Indiana Sprint Week crown finally came as he put his Petty Performance Racing/Novix Outdoors – Avanti Windows & Doors – JUGO/Mach-1/Stanton Chevy No. 3p on the podium to clinch the championship.
“Thank the lord Jesus Christ,” Cummins exclaimed. “I did some praying there before the feature there and I just told him whatever his will is, if it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be. If it’s not, we’ll just live with it and go on. That calmed me down a little bit. Every time we had the restart, I felt great. Then, once those guys got out, then Moles got around me on the bottom and I wasn’t great on the bottom. I found that top line a little bit and I was like, ‘oh, I can hustle here.’ Then, here come Justin who just drove by all of us. So, I was like, ‘oh boy, if he wins and I finish fourth or fifth, I don’t know what the math is, but it’s probably not good.’ With the pressure of Jadon (Rogers) there behind me, it was three wide for a while, and my car was only good plugged up in the fence and I got tight a couple times and I was racing for my life.”
For Cummins’ the prize was a $25,000 check, a custom championship trophy, and a handmade Bridgeport rocker for his car owner, Jerry Petty. But most of all was the satisfaction of checking off yet another major milestone in a year that has been chockfull of them.
“I’ve wanted to win on the half miles and I checked them all off my list, and I wanted to win Sprint Week,” Cummins noted. “I don’t know how many more years I want to do it and this was kind of the best-case scenario. We had a great week and I thought that if I don’t do it now I probably won’t ever get it done again. That put a little extra pressure on me.”
As for the race itself, Harley Burns was the key guy up front early as he led the initial 17 laps of his USAC National Sprint Car career in succession after starting on the front row alongside pole sitter Brady Bacon. Meanwhile, all Cummins had to do was finish inside the top five and the ISW title was his regardless of where any of his fellow championship contenders ran, that being Justin Grant, Mitchel Moles, and Jake Swanson. Despite dropping from third to fifth early on, Cummins never drifted outside of the top five.
At the same time, Grant was moving forward from his inside row four position, swiping fourth on lap 13 from fellow title contenders Cummins and Moles. Up a bit further, Bacon was draped all over Burns for the race lead during the midway point of the 30-lap affair but Burns managed to fight him off for the time being.
That said, Grant continued to surge. On the 17th trip around The Class Track, Grant slid up in front of Bacon off turn four to take over second. One lap later, Grant swept along the bottom and slid up in front of Burns to put his grip on the lead once and for all.
“I knew we had a really, really good car, but we weren’t very good all night long,” Grant admitted. “I just tried to keep my nose clean there early. I knew I had a good enough racecar to pick through guys and it looked like everybody else was getting freer and it was coming to me. So, I figured I’d just let things widen up here and we’d be good to drive by them. I figured that once I got Kyle (Cummins) and Mitchel (Moles) put away early, I felt like I was going to be okay to get by Brady (Bacon) and Harley (Burns) there. But getting the 19 and 3p behind you here seems like a good thing.”
Despite a yellow flag that bunched up the field following a lap 22 caution for sixth running Rogers who slid to a stop in turn three, Grant had the field covered. In the end, he crossed under the checkered flag 1.361 seconds ahead of runner-up Brady Bacon. Kyle Cummins took third with Mitchel Moles fourth, while Kevin Thomas Jr. rounded out the top five after starting 10th.
USAC AMSOIL Sprint Car National Championship, Tri-State Speedway, Haubstadt, Indiana, August 1, 2026
LEARNLAB QUALIFYING: 1. Mitchel Moles, 19AZ, Reinbold/Underwood-12.862; 2. Hayden Reinbold, 19, Reinbold/Underwood-12.888; 3. Chase Stockon, 92, Sertich-13.149; 4. Kyle Cummins, 3p, Petty-13.239; 5. Harley Burns, 16, Britt Aero-13.295; 6. Brady Bacon, 20, Dyson-13.337; 7. Justin Grant, 4, TOPP-13.362; 8. Eli Wilhelmus, 55, Wilhelmus-13.468; 9. Jadon Rogers, 14, Rogers-13.508; 10. Kevin Thomas Jr., 15, BBI-13.565; 11. Charles Davis Jr., 47, Davis-13.580; 12. Kendall Ruble, 17, Ruble-13.594; 13. Briggs Danner, 39, Hogue-13.629; 14. Chet Williams, 38, Williams-13.631; 15. Robert Ballou, 12, Ballou-13.642; 16. Aric Gentry, 10, Gentry-13.704; 17. Logan Seavey, 57, Abacus-13.804; 18. Colin Parker, 16K, Knight-13.838; 19. Hunter Schuerenberg, 3R, Rock Steady-13.865; 20. Jake Swanson, 5T, Daming Swanson-13.871; 21. C.J. Leary, 53, Fox-13.908; 22. Carson Short, 21m, Edwards-13.951; 23. Mike Larrison, 14x, Rogers-13.954; 24. Cale Coons, 63, Dooling/Curb-Agajanian-14.103; 25. Brandon Mattox, 28, Mattox-14.115; 26. Troy Carey, 45N, Carey-14.173; 27. Sam Scott, 7s, Scott-14.298; 28. Kobe Simpson, 21K, Simpson-14.395; 29. Dalton Stevens, 2B, 2B Racing-14.481; 30. Steven Pritchett, 2J, JAE-14.840; 31. Steve Justis, 12J, Justis-15.153; 32. Collin Jackson, 64c, Jackson-15.809; 33. Justin Meneely, 100, Meneely-15.926.
K1 RACEGEAR FIRST HEAT: (10 laps, top 5 transfer to the feature, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Mitchel Moles (6), 2. Harley Burns (5), 3. Jadon Rogers (4), 4. C.J. Leary (1), 5. Logan Seavey (2), 6. Briggs Danner (3), 7. Dalton Stevens (8), 8. Brandon Mattox (7), 9. Justin Meneely (9). 2:11.808
TJ FORGED SECOND HEAT: (10 laps, top 5 transfer to the feature, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Hayden Reinbold (6), 2. Brady Bacon (5), 3. Kevin Thomas Jr. (4), 4. Chet Williams (3), 5. Carson Short (1), 6. Colin Parker (2), 7. Troy Carey (7), 8. Steven Pritchett (8). 2:16.386
K & N FILTERS THIRD HEAT: (10 laps, top 5 transfer to the feature, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Chase Stockon (6), 2. Mike Larrison (1), 3. Charles Davis Jr. (4), 4. Justin Grant (5), 5. Hunter Schuerenberg (2), 6. Sam Scott (7), 7. Steve Justis (8), 8. Robert Ballou (3). 2:18.541
INDY POWERSPORTS FOURTH HEAT: (10 laps, top 5 transfer to the feature, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Kyle Cummins (6), 2. Eli Wilhelmus (5), 3. Aric Gentry (3), 4. Cale Coons (1), 5. Jake Swanson (2), 6. Kendall Ruble (4), 7. Kobe Simpson (7), 8. Collin Jackson (8). NT
FIVE STAR BODIES SEMI: (12 laps, top 4 transfer to the feature, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Briggs Danner (2), 2. Kendall Ruble (1), 3. Dalton Stevens (7), 4. Colin Parker (3), 5. Sam Scott (4), 6. Brandon Mattox (9), 7. Kobe Simpson (6), 8. Troy Carey (5), 9. Steve Justis (8), 10. Steven Pritchett (10), 11. Justin Meneely (12), 12. Collin Jackson (11). NT
FEATURE: (30 laps, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Justin Grant (7), 2. Brady Bacon (1), 3. Kyle Cummins (3), 4. Mitchel Moles (6), 5. Kevin Thomas Jr. (10), 6. Harley Burns (2), 7. Logan Seavey (16), 8. Jake Swanson (19), 9. Hayden Reinbold (5), 10. Dalton Stevens (24), 11. Jadon Rogers (9), 12. Eli Wilhelmus (8), 13. Briggs Danner (13), 14. Carson Short (21), 15. Kendall Ruble (12), 16. Cale Coons (23), 17. Charles Davis Jr. (11), 18. C.J. Leary (20), 19. Mike Larrison (22), 20. Aric Gentry (15), 21. Chase Stockon (4), 22. Chet Williams (14), 23. Colin Parker (17), 24. Hunter Schuerenberg (18).
