Grant Overcomes Broken Foot, Drama-Filled Feature to Become 5-Time Smackdown Champ
- Series News Release
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Series News Release - USAC Media
Kokomo, Indiana (August 23, 2025) - Just a few short days ago, Justin Grant wasn’t even planning to compete during Elliott’s Custom Trailers & Carts Sprint Car Smackdown XIV at Indiana’s Kokomo Speedway.
On Saturday night, the Ione, California native not only competed, but also pulled off one of the most miraculous and dramatic victories in USAC AMSOIL Sprint Car National Championship history as he became the first five-time Smackdown champion.
Borrowing a line from famed baseball announcer Vin Scully, “in a year that has been so improbable, the impossible has happened.”
For you see, just 27 days ago, Grant broke his left foot in a harrowing accident down the front straightaway at Lawrenceburg Speedway. Saddled with a boot strapped to his left leg and a carefully devised metal contraption connected to his foot in order to operate the brake pedal in his modified cockpit area, the pain, at times, was downright unbearable.
Somehow, through it all, with a shattered left foot and a heavy right foot, Grant mustered the energy to work his way from the fifth starting position before taking over the lead on the white flag lap after near racelong leader Briggs Danner collected the turn two wall amid a side-by-side battle for the top spot.
When all was said and done, Grant even found the strength to perform a cage stand atop his TOPP Motorsports/NOS Energy Drink – TOPP Industries – LA Poly/Maxim/Kistler Chevy in victory lane.
“I wasn’t planning on running this week; I didn’t think I could do it,” Grant revealed after collecting $31,000 for his score. “We talked about it and decided to come up Thursday to at least make an attempt and see if I felt competitive. We just kept getting more and more comfortable and getting the car more comfortable for me. We were working on setups, so that I could drive it a little bit differently. I had to change my driving style a fair bit.”
To add on to everything else, Grant’s victory was his 62nd in USAC National Sprint Car competition, which tied Dave Darland for the number one spot on the all-time series feature win list.
“It’s incredible,” Grant exclaimed. “There’s just so much tonight. Tying Dave for all-time wins is incredible. Just to be here racing is incredible. Tonight is special. I can’t believe we were good enough to win. I’m just so, so excited to win this. I almost can’t believe it. I was wanting to do a couple of donuts just so I could have time to stop crying on the cool down lap.”
Grant’s Smackdown championship night triumph was his fifth overall, but also his third-in-a-row, which tied Darland in another category. Darland and Grant are now the only two drivers to win the event in three consecutive years after Darland achieved the feat in 2013-2014-2015.
It all seemed impossible just a short time ago as Grant was laid up in the hospital with his toes above his nose. Almost from the moment the incident occurred, Grant’s prevailing thought turned to how quickly he could be back in the seat of a racecar. Perhaps Saturday’s heroics on the 1/4-mile dirt oval were unlikely, but as Grant explained, his wife, Ashley, was one who never doubted him in his ambition to defy the odds.
“She’s the only one who never doubted that I’d be back in a racecar,” Grant said. “We were there in the hospital that night and she’s telling the doctors, ‘he’s going to race tomorrow, so you better figure something out.’
While Grant did return to racing less than 48 hours later in late July’s USAC Indiana Sprint Week round at Kokomo, Grant didn’t quite feel comfortable. He hot lapped and qualified but did not partake in the remainder of the racing program. Over the next four successive nights, he opted to sit out in order to recover and recuperate before making his way back to the racetrack in subsequent USAC Silver Crown starts, incredibly finishing second at Salem Speedway and fourth at the Illinois State Fairgrounds.
But as everyone has learned through this process, never count out JG.
“I’m in a lot of pain,” Grant stated point blank. “If there was any way I could be at this event and put on a show, it’s what I was going to do. I didn’t know if I could run this weekend, so I went ahead and made sure my Thursday hot laps were as exciting as they could be in case that’s all I did. I love being here; I love racing, and I’m just happy to be doing it.”
Grant’s good friend, eight time USAC Silver Crown champion Kody Swanson, suffered a severe left foot injury in December 2023, and went through the trials and tribulations of dealing with everything it entailed in the short term and the long term, and was there to lend advice and a helping hand toward Grant’s own recovery.
“I’ve got to thank my good friend, Kody Swanson, for getting me hooked up with my surgeon,” Grant praised. “He smashed his foot bad and got me dialed in with the best surgeon in town. He got me a leg pillow, a shower chair, a pair of crutches and sent me on my way. He’s been giving me advice from when he broke his foot and has been coaching me through this whole deal.”
Despite clutching his crutches away from the racecar, when Grant slid into his racecar, he looked every bit the part of his regular ol’ self. While Grant rolled off the grid from the inside of the fifth row, it was pole sitter C.J. Leary who commanded the first three circuits of the 40-lapper. Earlier in the evening, Leary captured his second career King of the Hill title (2022 & 2025) to earn the coveted P1 spot.
However, the man on the move was fourth starting Danner who went topside to third around Mitchel Moles on the opening lap, then to second using the high line to zip past Kyle Cummins on the second go around. By lap four, Danner had the lead in his grasp as he shot to the inside of Leary to become the new race leader.
Meanwhile, Grant had steadily picked his way to third around the outside of Moles on lap 20, then took the second spot from Logan Seavey on the back straight on lap 25 through a flock of lapped traffic.
By then, however, Danner’s lead stood at a whopping six seconds. But all that would soon be chipped away with 10 laps remaining when Danner tangled with the 12th place car of Hayden Reinbold in turns three and four. The contact subsequently knocked the front end out on Reinbold’s machine, which necessitated a caution when Reinbold came to a halt. An a result, Danner’s titanic lead was erased, and consequently, put Grant right on Danner’s rear bumper for the restart.
That said, everything Grant threw at the lead, Danner was able to successfully thwart. Grant first slid Danner in turn one on the lap 31 resumption, but couldn’t make it stick, and it also briefly proved costly as Seavey capitalized and gained second from Grant and stayed there for laps 31-32.
Once Grant regained second from Seavey on the 33rd lap, he reloaded and refired with a turn one slider on lap 31 to no avail as Danner kept his foot on the pedal to motor on by. On lap 37, Grant slid all the way across the nose of Danner in turns one and two, but Danner answered with a counter measure to race back underneath and reobtain the top spot.
As the front two took the white flag, Grant fired one more shot as he slid to the inside alongside Danner in turns one and two. Without warning, Danner’s right rear tire caught the cushion, whipped his car to the right, ramped up the outside wall and flipped over, ending hid winning bid in the blink of an eye.
Despite the heartbreaking end, Danner still walked away with a nice $24,000 payday for his efforts. With each lap led paying $500 apiece, Danner’s 35 trips up front earned him $17,500 in lap leader money alone to go alongside $1500 for his 20th place result. Plus, Schroeder Torsion Bars even threw another $5,000 into his pocket for a hard luck award. On his walk back to the pits, Danner received a raucous standing ovation from the back straightaway grandstand crowd.
“Briggs is a heck of a racecar driver,” Grant stated. “If I wasn’t able to win tonight, I was pulling for him because he’s been running this place right and doing a really good job. I like those kind of guys.”
With the green-white-checker restart extending the race to 41 laps, Grant was superb for the final two circuits to close out a 0.608 second margin of victory over Kyle Cummins who got by Seavey with two laps left to finish in the runner-up spot for the third-straight night at Kokomo. Seavey took third ahead of Leary in fourth with Friday night prelim winner Kevin Thomas Jr. rounding out the top-five.
Grant positioned himself to pounce at the end, and it all paid off for his eighth win of the 2025 USAC National Sprint Car season and his 99th career USAC feature victory across all divisions. That said, this one may very well be his finest work yet.
“I was running this 4 car as hard as I could,” Grant explained. “There about halfway, I just had no energy. It’s kind of the biggest issue right now. I was just falling out of the seat the last half. I said, ‘well we’re not running for points,’ and the only reason I’m going to come here is if I felt like I could win. I had a shot to win there, so I hung it to the floor pan and tried to make it happen.”
Further accolades went to Cale Coons who was mightily impressive in his Smackdown debut. By finishing 10th, he earned $1,000 as the Crume-Evans Insurance Smackdown Rookie of the Year. He also picked up $250 as the Jeff's Jam-It-In Storage top Kokomo Speedway regular.
Ricky Lewis earned an extra $500 as the Smackdown Parallax Group Passing Master. Throughout the three events this weekend at Kokomo, Lewis passed a total of 29 cars.
It was a total team effort for Chase Stockon and Tom & Laurie Sertich’s Moose Racing team. Forced to make extensive repairs after a lap three incident that required their car to be taken away on the hook, the team thrashed to get back on track. Stockon restarted at the tail of the field in the 23rd position and raced his way back to finish seventh. That proved to be the Inferno Armor Fire Move of the Night.
Clinton Boyles got acclimated quite well in his role as a super sub filling in for Robert Ballou who is currently sidelined with a back injury. In his first Smackdown championship night start in five years, Boyles advanced 11 spots, starting 19th and finishing eighth to pick up Rod End Supply Hard Charger honors.
Kobe Simpson is a hard-working man, and thus, collected a bonus Benjamin Franklin in the process. After two nights of near misses in qualifying for the feature, the Texan finally cracked the Smackdown feature lineup where he advanced from 23rd to finish 15th. As a result, he was the recipient of the ProSource Hard Work award.
Rylan Gray raced his way into his first career Smackdown championship night feature. Earlier in the evening, Gray lost the last transfer spot with two laps to go, then gained it back on the final lap to make his way into the main event. With that, he earned a fresh right rear from Hoosier Tire as did C-Main winner Brayden Clark.
Most importantly, $158,543.07 was raised throughout Smackdown weekend with 100 percent of the proceeds going to Riley’s Children Hospital in order to fight childhood cancer. Money was raised through the tireless efforts of Melinda Stanbrough and others, who organized several charitable events in recent days at Kokomo Speedway, including a karaoke contest, a kickball game and a racing memorabilia auction.
USAC AMSOIL SPRINT CAR NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP RACE RESULTS: August 23, 2025 – Kokomo Speedway – Kokomo, Indiana – 1/4-Mile Dirt Track – Elliott’s Custom Trailers & Carts Sprint Car Smackdown XIV
CAR IQ FIRST HEAT: (10 laps, top 3 transfer to the feature) 1. Cale Coons (#63 Dooling/Curb-Agajanian), 2. Carson Garrett (#2E Epperson), 3. Jadon Rogers (#5 Baldwin-Fox), 4. Rylan Gray (#06 Gray), 5. David Gasper (#77s Sturgeon), 6. Harley Burns (#16 Britt Aero), 7. Brayden Clark (#4c Clark), 8. Troy Carey (#45N Carey), 9. Braydon Cromwell (#4x Cromwell). NT
K1 RACEGEAR SECOND HEAT: (10 laps, top 3 transfer to the feature) 1. Chelby Hinton (#71p Phillips), 2. Jake Swanson (#5T Daming Swanson), 3. Ricky Lewis (#41 Lewis), 4. Wyatt Burks (#16K Knight), 5. Zack Pretorius (#9z Pretorius), 6. Brandon Mattox (#28 Mattox), 7. Aaron Davis (#11 Davis), 8. Max Adams (#21 Hery), 9. Bryce Andrews (#17 MSR). 2:11.220
USAC GEAR THIRD HEAT: (10 laps, top 3 transfer to the feature) 1. Hayden Reinbold (#19 Reinbold-Underwood), 2. Kyle Shipley (#0G Black Gold), 3. Clinton Boyles (#12 Ballou), 4. Chance Crum (#83c Crum), 5. Matt Westfall (#54 Westfall), 6. Hunter Maddox (#24m Maddox), 7. Tyler Miller (#67 Lohman), 8. James Turnbull II (#2J Turnbull), 9. Parker Frederickson (#00 Whitney), 10. R.J. Miller (#34 Miller). NT
COOK OUT FOURTH HEAT: (10 laps, top 3 transfer to the feature) 1. Gunnar Setser (#5G KO), 2. Chase Stockon (#92 Sertich), 3. Shane Cottle (#86 Stamper), 4. Kobe Simpson (#21K Simpson), 5. Kayla Roell (#4K Roell), 6. Matt Goodnight (#39G Goodnight), 7. Adyn Schmidt (#12s Schmidt), 8. Devan Myers (#75 Myers). 2:16.325
FIRST BILL & SANDY WEVER & THE GRANDKIDS KING OF THE HILL QUARTERFINAL: (3 laps) #1 Kyle Cummins (#3p Petty) defeats #8 Logan Seavey (#57 Abacus). 40.708
SECOND BILL & SANDY WEVER & THE GRANDKIDS KING OF THE HILL QUARTERFINAL: (3 laps) #5 Mitchel Moles (#19AZ Reinbold-Underwood) defeats #4 Kevin Thomas Jr. (#3R Rock Steady). 40.971
THIRD BILL & SANDY WEVER & THE GRANDKIDS KING OF THE HILL QUARTERFINAL: (3 laps) #6 Briggs Danner (#39 Hogue) defeats #3 Justin Grant (#4 TOPP). 40.797
FOURTH BILL & SANDY WEVER & THE GRANDKIDS KING OF THE HILL QUARTERFINAL: (3 laps) #2 C.J. Leary (#21AZ Team AZ/Curb-Agajanian) defeats #7 Kale Drake (#2B 2B Racing). 41.895
FIRST BILL & SANDY WEVER & THE GRANDKIDS KING OF THE HILL SEMIFINAL: (3 laps) #1 Kyle Cummins defeats #5 Mitchel Moles. 40.132
SECOND BILL & SANDY WEVER & THE GRANDKIDS KING OF THE HILL SEMIFINAL: (3 laps) #2 C.J. Leary defeats #6 Briggs Danner. 41.597
BILL & SANDY WEVER & THE GRANDKIDS KING OF THE HILL FINAL: (3 laps) #2 C.J. Leary defeats #1 Kyle Cummins. 42.235
ALSO AT THE TRACK: Jacob Tuttle (#24x Maddox) & Jack Hoyer (#57H Hazen)
HOOSIER TIRE C-MAIN: (10 laps, top 4 transfer to the semi) 1. Brayden Clark, 2. Aaron Davis, 3. Devan Myers, 4. Max Adams, 5. Troy Carey, 6. Adyn Schmidt, 7. James Turnbull II, 8. Bryce Andrews, 9. Tyler Miller. 2:21.921
ELLIOTT’S CUSTOM TRAILERS & CARTS SEMI: (12 laps, top 4 transfer to the feature) 1. Wyatt Burks, 2. Chance Crum, 3. Kobe Simpson, 4. Rylan Gray, 5. Zack Pretorius, 6. Matt Westfall, 7. Harley Burns, 8. Kayla Roell, 9. Max Adams, 10. Brandon Mattox, 11. Matt Goodnight, 12. Brayden Clark, 13. Aaron Davis, 14. Devan Myers, 15. David Gasper, 16. Hunter Maddox. NT
FEATURE: (41 laps, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Justin Grant (5), 2. Kyle Cummins (2), 3. Logan Seavey (8), 4. C.J. Leary (1), 5. Kevin Thomas Jr. (6), 6. Mitchel Moles (3), 7. Chase Stockon (16), 8. Clinton Boyles (19), 9. Kale Drake (7), 10. Cale Coons (9), 11. Carson Garrett (13), 12. Gunnar Setser (12), 13. Ricky Lewis (18), 14. Chelby Hinton (10), 15. Kobe Simpson (23), 16. Jadon Rogers (17), 17. Chance Crum (22), 18. Harley Burns (26-P), 19. Kayla Roell (25-P), 20. Briggs Danner (4), 21. Hayden Reinbold (11), 22. Kyle Shipley (15), 23. Rylan Gray (24), 24. Jake Swanson (14), 25. Wyatt Burks (21), 26. Shane Cottle (20). NT
(P) represents a provisional starter
FEATURE LAP LEADERS: Laps 1-4 C.J. Leary, Laps 5-39 Briggs Danner, Laps 40-41 Justin Grant.
**Jacob Tuttle flipped during hot laps. Matt Westfall flipped during the third heat. Parker Frederickson & R.J. Miller flipped during the third heat. Wyatt Burks flipped on lap 3 of the feature. Briggs Danner flipped on lap 40 of the feature.
USAC AMSOIL SPRINT CAR NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS: 1-Kyle Cummins-2317, 2-Mitchel Moles-2059, 3-Logan Seavey-2041, 4-Kevin Thomas Jr.-1953, 5-Justin Grant-1901, 6-Briggs Danner-1899, 7-C.J. Leary-1812, 8-Jake Swanson-1771, 9-Robert Ballou-1693, 10-Kale Drake-1653.
USAC PARALLAX GROUP NATIONAL PASSING MASTER POINTS: 1-Kale Drake-207, 2-Briggs Danner-129, 3-Kevin Thomas Jr.-107, 4-Logan Seavey-105, 5-Gunnar Setser-102, 6-Justin Grant-97, 7-C.J. Leary-95, 8-Kyle Cummins-94, 9-Chase Stockon-82, 10-Jake Swanson-72.
FINAL SPRINT CAR SMACKDOWN PARALLAX GROUP PASSING MASTER POINTS: 1-Ricky Lewis-29, 2-Clinton Boyles-26, 3-Kobe Simpson-24, 4-Chance Crum-24, 5-Chase Stockon-21, 6-David Gasper-19, 7-Max Adams-18, 8-Logan Seavey-15, 9-Kale Drake-13, 10-Justin Grant-12.
NEXT USAC AMSOIL SPRINT CAR NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP RACE: September 5, 2025 – Tri-City Speedway – Granite City, Illinois – 3/8-Mile Dirt Track
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