SUMNER, Ill. — In sickness and in health, Mitchel Moles has had quite the USAC AMSOIL Sprint Car National Championship season.
During Friday night’s Illinois Sprint Car Championship weekend opener at Red Hill Raceway in Sumner, Illinois, Moles set a career high in USAC National Sprint Car wins for a season with his third triumph of the year after fending off an attack from Jadon Rogers.
For Moles, this one had a bit of a different feeling as well as a different landing than usual. The Raisin City, California native reported he had been a bit under the weather this past week. Then, as he climbed from the car to celebrate the triumph with a cage stand in victory lane, he promptly lost his footing and fell to the ground.
Moles didn’t quite stick the landing, but he sure stuck his Reinbold-Underwood Motorsports/AME – Mesilla Valley Transportation/Spike/Stanton Chevy in victory lane.
“While I was racing, I probably didn’t look like I was sick. But when I did that cage stand there, it definitely looked like my equilibrium was off a little bit,” Moles admitted. “I’ve been sick all week and I haven’t seen these guys since Knoxville last week, really. I’m still not feeling 100 percent. They pretty much did all the work tonight. I didn’t do anything other than just drive the thing.”
It was the eighth career USAC National Sprint Car win for Moles.
Moles, who owns Red Hill’s USAC National Sprint Car one-lap track record, lined up sixth in the 25-lap feature in an event that was co-sanctioned by both USAC and the Midwest Thunder 410 Sprint Car Series. Robert Ballou, just as he did in USAC’s early April race at Red Hill, established the early lead after starting on the pole position.
By lap seven, Ballou’s lead had ballooned to 1.5 seconds when Briggs Danner got sideways in turn two. Rogers had no place to go and wound up tapping Danner’s rear bumper, which sent Danner spinning to a stop and brought out the first caution. Danner restarted at the tail of the 23-car field, and managed to drive all the way back to finish ninth.
Following the restart, Moles turned it up. Slotting into the fourth spot, Moles made his way to third when he dove under Logan Seavey in turn three on lap seven, then grabbed the second position on lap nine as he whistled underneath Leary entering turn one.
Moles quickly erased Ballou’s lead, and on lap 12, made his move for the lead as he split between Ballou to his outside and the lapped car of Collin Jackson to his inside entering turn one. Yet, at the same moment, the yellow flag was displayed for the slowing car of Kevin Thomas Jr. (13th), negating the move, and placing Ballou back in front of Moles for the restart.
Wasting no time flat, Moles moved to the inside of Ballou as he got into turn one on the lap 13 restart. All the while, Moles was using a trick line to get around the 3/8-mile dirt oval, as he sort of diamonded the corner by going high on entry, then slicing down to the bottom to get a big run down the straightaways, which worked ever so perfectly and just in the nick of time.
“It went away fast,” Moles said of the line. “I knew that pretty much when I cleared Robert, it was damn near done. Then, I had to revert back to the top, which was just like moving snow. It was just blowing as fast as it could to get to the wall and I got into the wall there a couple times. I was just trying not to crash thing. Nobody wants to crash while leading.”
Rogers rose to second on lap 16 as he narrowly slid by Ballou in turn two. Now, the mission was on to track down Moles and his 1.7 second advantage out front. Lapped traffic assisted Rogers in that endeavor, much to the chagrin of Moles. Rogers took advantage and was right on Moles’ tail as the front two encountered Troy Carey and Michael Clark.
Once cleared of both lappers, Rogers had Moles in his crosshairs with the white flag just about to be displayed on lap 24, and was in the process of sliding Moles for the lead in turn two when the yellow flag was thrown for seventh running Chase Stockon who stopped in turn four with a flat right rear tire.
Rogers, whose last and only USAC National Sprint Car win to date came four years earlier in 2022, stuck right with Moles on the first circuit of the two-lap shootout. Rogers made slight contact with Moles back bumper in turn two, then chased Moles down the back straightaway and the pair went side-by-side entering turn three. Both drivers slid up the track in turn four, but Moles never gave an inch and used the high side momentum to secure the lead exiting turn four.
On the final go around, Rogers was never close enough to mount one final bid for the win as Moles passed underneath the checkered flag to win by about two car lengths, 0.255 seconds ahead of Rogers at the line. Ballou third with USAC point leader Kyle Cummins fourth and Cale Coons fifth.
“He was getting through one and two a lot better, then he tag bumped me on the start and I knew, OK, he’s running up here, at least,” Moles said of Rogers on the final restart. “He was just better than me up there (in turns one and two), and I felt like I was better down there (in turns three and four) than him. So, I just changed it up, licked the stamp and just tried to finish it off for these guys.”
USAC AMSOIL Sprint Car National Championship, Red Hill Raceway, Sumner, Ill., June 5, 2026
FIRST LEARNLAB QUALIFYING GROUP: 1. Kevin Thomas Jr., 3R, Rock Steady-14.654; 2. Kyle Cummins, 3p, Petty-14.691; 3. C.J. Leary, 24x, Maddox-14.730; 4. Jadon Rogers, 14, Rogers-14.945; 5. Troy Carey, 45N, Carey-15.306; 6. Kent Schmidt, 5K, Schmidt-15.345; 7. Michael Clark, 8, Clark-16.043; 8. Jake Swanson, 5T, Daming Swanson-18.081.
SECOND LEARNLAB QUALIFYING GROUP: 1. David Gasper, 77s, Sturgeon-15.046; 2. Robert Ballou, 12, Ballou-15.065; 3. Charles Davis Jr., 47, Davis-15.068; 4. Logan Seavey, 57, Abacus-15.182; 5. J.J. Hughes, 76J, Hughes-15.188; 6. Hayden Reinbold, 19, Reinbold/Underwood-15.200; 7. Aric Gentry, 10, Gentry-15.676; 8. Glen Saville, 75, Grasmere-15.894.
THIRD LEARNLAB QUALIFYING GROUP: 1. Justin Grant, 4, TOPP-14.545; 2. Chase Stockon, 92, Sertich-14.854; 3. Mitchel Moles, 19AZ, Reinbold/Underwood-14.900; 4. Briggs Danner, 39, Hogue-14.991; 5. Cale Coons, 63, Dooling/Curb-Agajanian-15.010; 6. Steve Thomas, 20, Thomas-17.117; 7. Collin Jackson, 64c, Jackson-17.399.
K1 RACEGEAR FIRST HEAT: (8 laps, all transfer to the feature, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Jadon Rogers (1), 2. C.J. Leary (2), 3. Kyle Cummins (3), 4. Kevin Thomas Jr. (4), 5. Kent Schmidt (6), 6. Troy Carey (5), 7. Michael Clark (7), 8. Jake Swanson (8). 2:06.88
TJ FORGED SECOND HEAT: (8 laps, all transfer to the feature, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Logan Seavey (1), 2. Robert Ballou (3), 3. Charles Davis Jr. (2), 4. Hayden Reinbold (6), 5. David Gasper (4), 6. J.J. Hughes (5), 7. Aric Gentry (7), 8. Glen Saville (8). 2:10.48
K & N FILTERS THIRD HEAT: (8 laps, all transfer to the feature, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Briggs Danner (1), 2. Mitchel Moles (2), 3. Chase Stockon (3), 4. Justin Grant (4), 5. Cale Coons (5), 6. Steve Thomas (6), 7. Collin Jackson (7). 2:10.42
FEATURE: (25 laps, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Mitchel Moles (6), 2. Jadon Rogers (5), 3. Robert Ballou (1), 4. Kyle Cummins (7), 5. Cale Coons (15), 6. Justin Grant (12), 7. C.J. Leary (2), 8. Logan Seavey (4), 9. Briggs Danner (3), 10. Hayden Reinbold (11), 11. J.J. Hughes (16), 12. Aric Gentry (18), 13. Michael Clark (17), 14. Troy Carey (20), 15. Steve Thomas (22), 16. Collin Jackson (23), 17. Chase Stockon (9), 18. David Gasper (14), 19. Kent Schmidt (13), 20. Kevin Thomas Jr. (10), 21. Charles Davis Jr. (8), 22. Glen Saville (21), 23. Jake Swanson (19).
