SPEEDWAY, Ind. — In what may be the most unlikely USAC Silver Crown Rookie of the Year to emerge, perhaps no one was more surprised about it than Chelby Hinton.
“If you would have told me at the beginning of the year that I would end up being Silver Crown Rookie of the Year, I would have told you that you were lying,” Hinton admitted.
No lies detected.
Hinton became the first driver from the state of Louisiana to score points in USAC’s Silver Crown division while also becoming the first driver from The Pelican State to capture Max Papis Innovations Rookie of the Year honors with the series.
Tallying six top-10 finishes in six starts throughout the 2026 season on pavement and dirt, Hinton defeated Hayden Reinbold by a mere eight points in what was one of the closet Rookie of the Year battles in series history after leapfrogging Reinbold in the final race of the year at Toledo.
Hinton hails from the small northwestern Louisiana village of Dubberly with a population of 238. But as far as the element of surprise in his Rookie of the Year award is that he missed four of the first five events of the 2026 season and had literally zero previous pavement experience under his belt entering the year.
His actual Silver Crown debut came in last year’s finale at Eldora where he completed 17 laps before a mechanical issue sidelined him. Hinton’s mentor, USAC Hall of Fame mechanic Bob East, got him connected with pavement car owner Charles Breidinger who houses his car in East’s shop.
In his first pavement run during June’s Hoosier Hundred at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park just two days shy of his 21st birthday, Hinton started and finished ninth, completing 99 of 100 laps while finishing ahead of several others who possess light year more Silver Crown and pavement experience.
“The looks and the talks that I got from everyone when I got out of the car at IRP, just the proud look on my dad and Bob’s face and Terry (Klatt)’s face, Charles and Miss Janice (East)’s face, and Dave (Brzozowski),” Hinton recalled. “Everyone was so happy. Moments like that are, unfortunately, few and far between in this industry. But that one in particular was one that stands out.”
Despite that admirable performance, Hinton was absent for the next two rounds before emerging back on the pavement of Iowa Speedway in the Breidinger No. 80. There, a torsion arm broke on the car in the waning stages of the race, but Hinton kept it off the wall. In a race chockfull of attrition, Hinton still managed a ninth.
Thereafter, another new experience was on the horizon for Hinton – the dirt miles. Terry Klatt and Bob East offered a second car for Hinton to run and he delivered a 10th at Springfield and a sixth at Du Quoin. It was at that point that a Rookie of the Year title could quite possibly be within reach, and the team’s schedule expanded as a result.
“After Iowa, we got back to the shop and Bob was like, “How do you feel about running a mile?” I was like, “yes!” Hinton remembered. “All I had to do was work on it, so we did that. Then, after Springfield, we decided to go to Du Quoin and there really was no plan of running Eldora. But with Bob’s willingness to keep me in a racecar, we were able to make that happen.”
At Eldora, Hinton was once again rock solid in the Klatt Enterprises No. 62 as he finished ninth in the 28-car field. Only a pavement show at Ohio’s Toledo Speedway remained on the schedule, and Hinton was right within striking distance, just six points behind Reinbold. That said, in response, Reinbold’s team put together a pavement car for Toledo to go head-to-head with Hinton for the crown. To that point, Reinbold had never competed on a pavement surface.
“Following Eldora, we were six points out of the Rookie race and we were going to try to finish Toledo with Charles,” Hinton noted. “Between Charles, Terry, and Bob, they were like, ‘make this happen.’ So, we did what we needed to do to continue the schedule.”
While Reinbold struggled with engine issues en route to a 17th-place finish, Hinton laid down yet another solid top 10 result to lock up Rookie of the Year honors by eight markers.
“This was my last shot at a USAC Rookie of the Year,” Hinton stated. “To me, it really means a lot because, if I do nothing else in my career, I can always say I did that and I’ll always be in the history books. No one can take that away from me. To me, personally, it means the world.”
The combination of East, Klatt and Breidinger running Hinton throughout the season may have shown separate entries on paper, but the entire group was all in on Hinton achieving the feat this year.
East has long been a champion of Hinton’s racing activities. When Hinton was racing micro sprints at U.S. 24 Speedway in Logansport, Indiana a few years ago, he was noticed by former USAC Midget competitor Doug Wright, who brought Hinton’s name to the attention of East, who gave him his first shot in a USAC NOS Energy Drink National Midget back in 2022. For Hinton, he was starstruck just to be standing inside the Beast shop which has produced hundreds of USAC wins and numerous championships over the past four decades.
“(Bob) has been very instrumental to my development in really every aspect of my racing,” Hinton praised. “I owe 80 percent of my career to him right now, and I want to do everything right by that man because he’s done everything right by me. He’s always wanted me to continue to get better as a driver and a person. Since I first met Bob, I feel like I’ve grown a lot since then. We work really well together and I haven’t sat in a car yet that Bob has touched that I didn’t like or didn’t feel comfortable in. To this day, he has not done a single thing on a racecar that I didn’t absolutely love.”
To go from zero pavement experience to placing within the top 10 finishers in all of his pavement starts, Hinton quickly showed that he’s a highly capable shoe whether it’s dirt or pavement. It’s a quest Breidinger played a pivotal role in as he provided his Bob East-built Beast chassis for Hinton to succeed in an environment he had never before faced.
“I’ve loved Charles the since the first time I started talking to him and I’m guessing he did the same because he has given me anything and everything that I need to go out and compete and have a competitive racecar underneath me,” Hinton said. “No matter where he is or what he’s doing, he always makes sure that I have exactly what I need to be as competitive as I can be.”
All in all, in the most unexpected of Rookie seasons, Hinton and the individuals surrounding him teamed up to make it a banner year for all, even if there was really no goal set in stone at the start of the year.
“Obviously, I have high expectations of myself, but Bob really didn’t set any standard or goal,” Hinton elaborated. “He just wanted to keep me in a racecar. With Bob, Terry, and Charles putting me through this second and third quarter of the year, none of this would’ve been possible without them.”
