INDIANAPOLIS — Hayden Reinbold defeated the field and the weather during Tuesday night’s USAC Indiana Midget Week opener at Circle City Raceway.
Starting seventh, the Gilbert, Arizona, native cruised the bottom of the quarter-mile dirt oval, taking the lead from Brecken Reese on lap 19 of 30 to capture his first USAC Indiana Midget Week victory.
The win was Reinbold’s second career USAC NOS Energy Drink Midget National Championship feature victory in his Reinbold-Underwood Motorsports/AME Electrical – JUGO Super Foods/Spike/Stanton SR-11x. Last fall, he grabbed his first USAC victory at Ohio’s Eldora Speedway.
Reinbold-Underwood Motorsports has now won a feature in all three USAC national divisions in 2026. Reinbold has won once each with the Silver Crown series and the National Midgets. Meanwhile, Mitchel Moles has tallied four USAC AMSOIL National Sprint Car main events this season, including two-straight last weekend.
Under threatening skies, the program was in hurry-up mode. As it turned out, Reinbold was in his own personal hurry-up mode. But first, he had to wade his way through the pack, which saw front row combatants Zach Wigal and Reese duke it out in the early stages.
Wigal paced lap one from the pole while outside front row starter Reese used the high line to hustle around the outside of Wigal for the lead on the second go around at the exit of turn four. Wigal kept after him and slid in front of Reese in the fourth turn on lap eight. But Reese denied his request as he dove back under Wigal to retain the lead.
Halfway in, Reese began to work lapped traffic, while opening up his lead to a commanding 1.644-second margin as he sought his first USAC feature victory.
However, on lap 17, Justin Grant put all four wheels atop the turn three cushion as he attempted a diamond maneuver with a downward trajectory to the bottom of turn four. As he came off the cushion, though, his car slipped sideways. Jacob Denney plowed into the left front of Grant’s car, resulting in Denney flipping over on his side.
It was Reese, Wigal and Reinbold running one-two-three. While Reese and Wigal sort of drifted through the middle in turns one and two, Reinbold stayed glued to the bottom.
Reinbold breezed by Wigal at the exit of turn two on the 17th lap resumption. Two laps later, Reinbold stuck to his guns on the low line to pick off Reese for the race lead.
“I started running the bottom-middle and everyone was sliding themselves through one and two. That’s when I could get a run off (turn) two on them,” Reinbold recalled. “The car was super, super good.”
After the lapped cars of Adam Taylor and Bradley Cox tangled and stopped on lap 21, the ensuing restart saw Logan Seavey follow Reinbold’s lead as he too went to the low side to pass Reese for second.
But as Seavey fought a tooth and nail battle with Reese, Reinbold had lengthened his lead to nearly two seconds over the next handful of laps.
“It started getting super slick and I was kind of getting nervous because the bottom was really good,” Reinbold explained. “Then, the whole track started to slow down. I didn’t know if I had to move up or move to the middle. I even started hitting the (infield) tires towards the end there.”
Reinbold was in total control from that point forward, building his advantage to 2.836 seconds as he crossed under Tom Hansing’s dual checkered flags with Seavey second, a surging Kevin Thomas Jr. in third, Wigal in fourth and Reese rounding out the top five.
After the checkered, Boxell and Cannon McIntosh had a bit of a post-race tangle in turn two as both came to a stop adjacent from each other. But their results were already set in stone with Boxell slotted sixth and McIntosh eighth.
Just a little over five minutes after the checkered flag waved, the rain began.
Kevin Thomas Jr. vaulted into the USAC National Midget point lead with a 14th to third run that landed him a podium finish.
Brecken Reese led a race-high 17 laps. Although he came up just shy of his first USAC victory, his fifth-place finish still proved to be his best USAC Indiana Midget Week result to date.
USAC NOS Energy Drink Midget National Championship, Circle City Raceway, Indianapolis, Ind. June 9, 2026
LEARNLAB QUALIFYING: 1. Karter Sarff, 71m, May-12.620; 2. Drake Edwards, 40D, McDermand-12.636; 3. Justin Grant, 87, CBI-12.662; 4. Logan Seavey, 57, Abacus-12.689; 5. Kale Drake, 4, RMS-12.712; 6. Brecken Reese, 20Q, Reese-12.741; 7. Zach Wigal, 1, O’Dell-12.761; 8. Trevor Cline, 55, Cline-12.792; 9. Gunnar Setser, 43, Arnold-12.793; 10. Hayden Reinbold, 19AZ, Reinbold-Underwood-12.821; 11. Jacob Denney, 67, Kunz/Curb-Agajanian-12.830; 12. Kevin Thomas Jr., 14, 4 Kings-12.855; 13. Cannon McIntosh, 71K, Kunz/Curb-Agajanian-12.864; 14. Colton Robinson, 67K, Kunz/Curb-Agajanian-12.878; 15. Kyle Jones, 7TX, Engler-12.904; 16. Gavin Miller, 97, Kunz/Curb-Agajanian-12.969; 17. Rylan Gray, 81G, Gray-13.033; 18. Matt Sherrell, 2D, Harris-13.037; 19. Brandon Carr, 98K, Kunz/Curb-Agajanian-13.050; 20. Ethan Mitchell, 19m, Bundy Built-13.097; 21. Mack Leopard, 40L, McDermand-13.115; 22. Adam Taylor, 7T, ATM-13.119; 23. Bradley Cox, 45, Mason-13.132; 24. Jakeb Boxell, 54, 4 Kings-13.133; 25. Drew Sherman, 19, Reinbold/Underwood-13.356; 26. Chris Hartman, 35s, Hodge-13.736; 27. Robert Carson, 99K, Carson-13.880; 28. Mike Unger, 67u, Frederiksen/Unger-13.891.
K1 RACEGEAR FIRST HEAT: (10 laps, top-5 transfer to the feature, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Mack Leopard (1), 2. Cannon McIntosh (3), 3. Karter Sarff (6), 4. Rylan Gray (2), 5. Kale Drake (5), 6. Gunnar Setser (4), 7. Drew Sherman (7). 2:09.979
TJ FORGED SECOND HEAT: (10 laps, top-5 transfer to the feature, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Hayden Reinbold (4), 2. Matt Sherrell (2), 3. Colton Robinson (3), 4. Brecken Reese (5), 5. Adam Taylor (1), 6. Chris Hartman (7), 7. Drake Edwards (6). NT
K & N FILTERS THIRD HEAT: (10 laps, top-5 transfer to the feature, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Jacob Denney (4), 2. Justin Grant (6), 3. Brandon Carr (2), 4. Kyle Jones (3), 5. Zach Wigal (5), 6. Bradley Cox (1), 7. Robert Carson (7). NT
INDY POWERSPORTS FOURTH HEAT: (10 laps, top-5 transfer to the feature, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Jakeb Boxell (1), 2. Kevin Thomas Jr. (4), 3. Ethan Mitchell (2), 4. Logan Seavey (6), 5. Gavin Miller (3), 6. Trevor Cline (5), 7. Mike Unger (7). 2:13.835
FIVE STAR BODIES SEMI: (8 laps, top-4 transfer to the feature, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Drake Edwards (1), 2. Gunnar Setser (3), 3. Trevor Cline (2), 4. Bradley Cox (4), 5. Drew Sherman (6), 6. Chris Hartman (5), 7. Mike Unger (8), 8. Robert Carson (7). 1:49.747 (New Track Record)
FEATURE: (30 laps, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Hayden Reinbold (7), 2. Logan Seavey (4), 3. Kevin Thomas Jr. (14), 4. Zach Wigal (1), 5. Brecken Reese (2), 6. Jakeb Boxell (10), 7. Kale Drake (3), 8. Cannon McIntosh (15), 9. Gunnar Setser (13), 10. Karter Sarff (6), 11. Jacob Denney (8), 12. Colton Robinson (16), 13. Gavin Miller (18), 14. Kyle Jones (17), 15. Justin Grant (5), 16. Mack Leopard (9), 17. Matt Sherrell (20), 18. Brandon Carr (21), 19. Trevor Cline (12), 20. Ethan Mitchell (22), 21. Adam Taylor (23), 22. Drake Edwards (11), 23. Bradley Cox (24), 24. Rylan Gray (19).
