SPEEDWAY, Ind. — No matter how you slice it, it’s been a long time since the USAC AMSOIL Sprint Car National Championship made its way to Ohio’s Fremont Speedway and Millstream Speedway.
This Saturday, June 28, USAC National Sprint Cars visit Fremont’s third-mile for the first time in 22 seasons. The following night, on Sunday, June 29, Millstream’s four-tenths-mile serves as host for the series for the first time in 37 years.
Fresh off a weeklong tour of New Jersey and Pennsylvania, the series heads to the Buckeye State for a pair of events none of us have witnessed in a generation or two.
LONG TIME COMING
When the schedule was announced this past December, these two events stuck out as parts not often visited by USAC National Sprint Cars. Specifically, Fremont last welcomed USAC Sprint Cars in 2003 when Tracy Hines took the Buckeye Nationals round. J.J. Yeley scored there in 2002 while Eddie Leavitt took top honors in 1981. The track record of 14.655 seconds is held by Jay Drake, set in 2003.
As far as Millstream, like Fremont, there has been a different winner in every USAC National Sprint Car race held at the track. Millstream harkens back earlier into USAC history with Rollie Beale and Sammy Sessions taking trophies there in 1975.
Rivals Gary Bettenhausen and Larry Dickson pocketed the top prizes in 1976. Jac Haudenschild won his first USAC main event at Millstream in 1982, and earlier that night, established the still standing USAC track record (without a wing) of 17.941 seconds. Brad Doty scored the most recent Millstream USAC victory (with a wing) back in 1988.
CURRENT DAY
Kyle Cummins experienced pretty much a flawless Eastern Storm last week, finishing fourth, first, second, third and fourth in his five starts during the week, yet still came up just short on the miniseries title to Justin Grant via a tiebreaker.
Disappointed, sure. But those results are certainly still championship caliber performances, and that’s kept Cummins afloat lately to where he carries a sizable 95-point lead heading to Ohio.
Furthermore, Cummins’ current run of 19 consecutive top-10 finishes to start the season are the most since C.J. Leary’s title season of 2019 when he netted 21-straight to open up the year.
AFTER THE STORM
Fresh off a USAC Eastern Storm championship in which he won three of the five events, Justin Grant is feeling strong. He trails only Kyle Cummins in terms of feature victories with five compared to Cummins’ six.
On nine previous occasions, a driver has parlayed an Eastern Storm title into a USAC National Sprint Car crown at season’s end: Levi Jones (2007-2010-2011), Bryan Clauson (2012-2013), Brady Bacon (2014), Robert Ballou (2015), Chris Windom (2017) and C.J. Leary (2019).
TURNING THE CORNER
Entering Eastern Storm, Jake Swanson had accrued just two top-five finishes throughout the first 14 events of the USAC National Sprint Car season. During Eastern Storm, he posted three alone in his last four starts.
The Anaheim, Calif., native put together a string of fifth, fourth, sixth and second to close out Eastern Storm, which has him and his newly-built team looking like they’ve turned the corner heading into a busy summer stretch.
The same could be said for Kevin Thomas Jr., who notched his second win of the year last Friday at Williams Grove. It’s been a weird, strange trip for the Rock Steady bunch this year, but after residing outside of the top-10 of the standings for much of the year, they now stand 11th and are coming off a podium finish in their most recent outing on Sunday in Kutztown.
MADMAN & COMPANY
Robert Ballou has won at Fremont Speedway in his career, collecting a Buckeye Outlaw Sprint Series (BOSS) score there in 2013.
Sitting sixth in the series standings, Ballou is among those looking to notch his first USAC win of the season this weekend in Ohio, along with other frontrunners such as Mitchel Moles (third in points), Briggs Danner (fourth), Jake Swanson (seventh), Kale Drake (eighth) and C.J. Leary (10th), just to name a few in the top-10.
