LAWRENCEBURG, Ind. — Justin Grant characterizes Lawrenceburg Speedway as sort of a second home to him throughout his racing career.
He’s won numerous races at the three-eighths-mile dirt oval, including the first feature victory of his USAC AMSOIL Sprint Car National Championship career in 2012, but none were bigger than the $20,000 payday he pocketed on Saturday night during the 16th running of the Fall Nationals.
Just as he did that night more than a decade ago, the Ione, Calif. native capped the evening with a hat shake, saluting the fans while holding his helmet out of the top of the roll cage during his ceremonial victory lap.
On a night in which he became the 10th driver to achieve 400 career USAC National Sprint Car feature starts, Grant raced away to the most dominant score of the 2023 season, lapping all but the top-seven finishers in a a 6.756-second shellacking behind the wheel of his TOPP Motorsports/NOS Energy Drink – Bow Foundation – TOPP Industries/Maxim/Kistler Chevy.
His win total on the 2023 USAC National Sprint Car season now stands at 11, the most since Tyler Courtney achieved the same total during the 2018 season. Grant’s 45th career USAC National Sprint Car victory has moved him into a tie for sixth all-time alongside 1968-70-75 series champion Larry Dickson.
It’s been quite a run for Grant over his last 17 USAC National Sprint Car feature starts, winning eight times in that timeframe with the series, and the Fall Nationals triumph arrives on the heels of last weekend’s $20,039 Driven2SaveLives BC39 USAC NOS Energy Drink Midget National Championship victory at The Dirt Track at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
“I’m so blessed to be able to get into these absolute hot rods every night,” Grant exclaimed. “Everything I’ve jumped into lately has been the fastest car on the race track. This car was on absolute rails tonight. (Jeff Walker) had us dialed in and I could run wide open even when it was up against the wall; I had grip, and I was stable. The thing has been unreal, and I didn’t feel like I was as on top of my game as I’d like to be. I was a little behind the racecar, but fortunately, we’ve been so good and that makes my job easy.”
Despite winning his heat race, the initial satisfaction of the victory was soon clouded by a sudden issue that had the team scrambling to make wholesale changes to remedy the situation.
“After the heat race, the car shut off coming to the checkered,” Grant explained. “Running down the back stretch, it shut off, then came back on. We couldn’t figure out what was wrong with it, so we changed ignitions, we changed steering gears, we changed cam spuds and the fuel pump, and we were back there thrashing from the time the heat race was over. We were still putting the body back on when the eight-minute horn went off for the feature.”
Rolling off from the seventh starting position, Grant had some digging to do to work his way to the front while Robert Ballou led the initial eight laps from the pole position. Meanwhile, Grant was already hustling as he made his way up to fourth by lap four with a two-for-one pass on the bottom of turns three and four by Max Adams and Jake Swanson.
The yellow flag was displayed on lap six when 17th running Saban Bibent experienced a flat right rear tire, then slapped the outside turn one wall. He was finished for the evening as was eighth place running Brady Bacon who pulled off during the caution with a driveline issue.
Grant entered the race with a 66-point lead in the USAC National Sprint Car championship fight over Bacon. But with Bacon’s mechanical issue and subsequent 19th place result, the thoughts of any kind of points racing or conservatism for Grant went out the window.
“When Brady fell out, I thought, well, that’s a freebie. I can go out and make $20 grand, and if I crash trying, then it’s no harm, no foul,” Grant laid out. “It actually made me drive the thing a little harder probably because I didn’t have to worry about it. I could just go out and bash, and in the worst-case scenario, we come out of here how we went in. It was a good opportunity for us to go try and make some money.”
Shortly after the ensuing restart, second-running Thomas Meseraull turned the volume up to 11. He slid Ballou for the lead in turn one on lap seven, and proceeded to lead the next half-lap until he tagged the outside wall with his right rear tire, sending him helicoptering down the racetrack before coming to a rest. The incident eliminated Meseraull from the race and ended his opportunity for a $30,000 payday, which would’ve included a $10,000 bounty that was up for grabs to a driver outside the top-12 in USAC national sprint car points who could win the event.
Grant had moved into third with a low-side pass of C.J. Leary in turns three and four just before the red flag, and with the exodus of Meseraull, lined up second behind Ballou for the seventh sojourn. Two laps later, on the ninth of 30 circuits, Bacon found the lead when he again streamed to the bottom in turn three before sliding up right across the nose of Ballou exiting turn four and beating him to the line by a single car length.
From there, it was curtains for the rest of the field as Grant stretched his lead to more than three seconds by the halfway mark at lap 15, and soon found himself back inside the top-10 by virtue of lapping 10th running Kyle Cummins, Emerson Axsom in ninth, and ultimately, eighth-place Mitchel Moles with five laps remaining.
Just shy of a half-lap behind Grant at the finish line were Robert Ballou in the runner-up spot followed by Jake Swanson in third, Logan Seavey in fourth and Jadon Rogers fifth after starting back in 12th.
Grant’s victory came in the final race as Dave and Kim Rudisell’s 17-year tenure as the promoters of Lawrenceburg Speedway, who on Saturday night, served as the race organizers of their 40th USAC National Sprint Car event at the track, which ranks eighth all-time.
The Boxscore
USAC AMSOIL Sprint Car National Championship, Lawrenceburg Speedway, Lawrenceburg, Ind., Oct. 7, 2023
HONEST ABE ROOFING QUALIFYING: 1. Brady Bacon, 69, Dynamics-13.637; 2. C.J. Leary, 15x, BGE Dougherty-13.695; 3. Logan Seavey, 2B, 2B Racing-13.765; 4. Thomas Meseraull, 23, NIKSTE-13.770; 5. Jake Swanson, 21AZ, Team AZ-13.823; 6. Max Adams, 5x, Adams-13.839; 7. Robert Ballou, 12, Ballou-13.912; 8. Justin Grant, 4, TOPP-14.010; 9. Carson Garrett, 15, BGE Dougherty-14.012; 10. Jadon Rogers, 17GP, Dutcher-14.037; 11. Kevin Thomas Jr., 24, LSR-14.083; 12. Saban Bibent, 98, Wedgewood-14.100; 13. Joss Moffatt, 5J, Moffatt-14.158; 14. Emerson Axsom, 47BC, Clauson Marshall Newman-14.169; 15. Briggs Danner, 39, Hogue-14.207; 16. Chance Crum, 26, Rudeen-14.223; 17. Mitchel Moles, 19AZ, Reinbold/Underwood-14.246; 18. Sterling Cling, 34, SCR-14.383; 19. Garrett Abrams, 32, Abrams-14.383; 20. Chase Stockon, 5s, KO-14.395; 21. Daison Pursley, 5p, KO-14.474; 22. Nick Bilbee, 17, Bilbee-14.712; 23. Brandon Mattox, 28, Mattox-14.729; 24. Rylan Gray, 06, Gray-14.738; 25. Kyle Cummins, 3R, Rock Steady-15.703; 26. Matt Westfall, 33m, Marshall-NT; 27. Nathan Carle, 14c, Carle-NT (Time of 14.470 disallowed due to illegal tire).
SIMPSON RACE PRODUCTS FIRST HEAT: (8 laps, top-5 transfer to the feature) 1. Chance Crum, 2. Robert Ballou, 3. Thomas Meseraull, 4. Nick Bilbee, 5. Jadon Rogers, 6. Brady Bacon, 7. Joss Moffatt, 8. Kyle Cummins, 9. Garrett Abrams. 1:53.99
ROD END SUPPLY SECOND HEAT: (8 laps, top-5 transfer to the feature) 1. Justin Grant, 2. C.J. Leary, 3. Emerson Axsom, 4. Mitchel Moles, 5. Jake Swanson, 6. Chase Stockon, 7. Nathan Carle, 8. Brandon Mattox, 9. Kevin Thomas Jr. NT
T.J. FORGED/CAR IQ THIRD HEAT: (8 laps, top-5 transfer to the feature) 1. Briggs Danner, 2. Logan Seavey, 3. Carson Garrett, 4. Max Adams, 5. Sterling Cling, 6. Daison Pursley, 7. Saban Bibent, 8. Rylan Gray. 1:56.80
ELLIOTT’S CUSTOM TRAILERS & CARTS SEMI: (10 laps, top-7 transfer to the feature) 1. Brady Bacon, 2. Saban Bibent, 3. Kyle Cummins, 4. Garrett Abrams, 5. Daison Pursley, 6. Chase Stockon, 7. Nathan Carle, 8. Brandon Mattox, 9. Rylan Gray, 10. Joss Moffatt. 2:28.18
FEATURE: (30 laps, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Justin Grant (7), 2. Robert Ballou (1), 3. Jake Swanson (3), 4. Logan Seavey (5), 5. Jadon Rogers (12), 6. C.J. Leary (6), 7. Briggs Danner (8), 8. Mitchel Moles (15), 9. Emerson Axsom (14), 10. Kyle Cummins (21), 11. Nick Bilbee (20), 12. Carson Garrett (11), 13. Chase Stockon (18), 14. Sterling Cling (16), 15. Daison Pursley (19), 16. Garrett Abrams (17), 17. Max Adams (2), 18. Thomas Meseraull (4), 19. Brady Bacon (10), 20. Saban Bibent (13), 21. Nathan Carle (22), 22. Chance Crum (9). NT