SPEEDWAY, Ind. — Justin Grant is back in the seat of the CB Industries No. 87 for the 2026 USAC NOS Energy Drink Midget National Championship season, as he searches for his first career title with the series.
Grant begins his second year of USAC National Midget racing with CBI when the season fires up at Indiana’s Kokomo Speedway with the running of the Kokomo Grand Prix on Friday-Saturday, April 24-25.
The Ione, California native owns multiple USAC driving titles in both the Silver Crown (2020 & 2025) and AMSOIL National Sprint Car (2022 & 2023) divisions. One year ago, he finished as the runner-up in the USAC National Midget standings, the third time he’s done so over the last four seasons.
A USAC National Midget championship in 2026 would complete the third and final prong of the USAC Career Triple Crown, an achievement he’s fully cognizant of.
“I’m excited that I have a good opportunity to go chase a midget title,” Grant stated. “(The Triple Crown) is definitely a goal. It’s a box on my list that’s currently unchecked. I’ve got a great opportunity to do that and I’m really excited to be in that position and excited to go work with (team owner) Chad (Boat) again. I’m not hurt and I feel like things are looking good. I feel like through Chili Bowl, we were really working well together and I feel like I got really comfortable in the car. I’m really excited about it.”
During January’s Chili Bowl Nationals in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Grant finished second in his Friday night prelim feature, then was in position late to make the winning move in the final night A-Main when trouble ended his bid prematurely in heartbreaking fashion.
Grant’s initial year with CBI in USAC National Midget competition in 2025 netted him three victories at Kokomo, Belleville and The Dirt Track at Indianapolis Motor Speedway to go along with 12 top fives and 17 top 10s in 23 starts. Year two presents an opportunity to up the game even further.
“Ideally, you want year two to be better than year one,” Grant said. “I think that’s kind of where we are with Chad, the rest of the CBI guys and I. I feel like, last year, we were kind of figuring each other out and figuring out what roles we were leaning into as far as how to communicate and how to mesh and all of that. At the Chili Bowl this year, I feel like we were on a lot better page. Not that we weren’t last year, but this year, we want to finish that mesh up a little bit, communicate well and lean into both of our roles as well as we can and go win some races.”
Of course, injury saddled Grant for much of the latter half of the 2025 schedule after breaking his left foot in a July sprint car crash. A clean bill of health for 2026 has already seen him win twice on the USAC National Sprint Car circuit by mid-April. Back in prime form, Grant plans to translate that early success to the midgets.
“I’m a lot better in the in the last year,” Grant revealed. “The foot’s coming around and now it’s pretty good, so good that it’s not even a consideration and not an issue. Now, I can go focus on doing my job. If nothing else, it’s a lot less of a nuisance and a hassle just having to get somebody to carry things for me and have somebody help me do everything. That was a bit of a pain. The in-car stuff wasn’t terrible, but it was uncomfortable. You can deal with that once you’re racing and you’re locked-in and doing your thing. My energy was down and it was just a little bit of a hurdle. So, it’s nice to have that out of the way for right now.”
