SELINSGROVE, Pa. – While race fans endured a wait of fifty years between the first and second USAC AMSOIL National Sprint Car Series appearances at Selinsgrove Speedway, Justin Grant only had to wait two days between Eastern Storm win number one and Eastern Storm win number two.
Just 48 hours after earning his first Eastern Storm triumph following nearly a decade of trying, the Ione, Calif., driver collected his second career Eastern Storm score in a three-night span, leading the final seven laps on Thursday night around the half-mile dirt oval which last hosted a USAC National Sprint Car Series event in 1971.
Grant took the lead from Chris Windom seven laps from the finish, then withstood multiple Robert Ballou slide-job attempts during the final restart to win his third series feature of the season, and the 24th of his USAC National Sprint Car career.
In doing so, Grant passed Roger McCluskey for 27th all-time in his TOPP Motorsports/NOS Energy Drink – MPV Express – TOPP Industries/Maxim/Kistler Chevy.
“These half-miles, they’re not always the most comfortable thing, so a lot of times it comes down to knowing you have a good race car,” Grant explained. “But it seemed like everybody up front was all kind of running the same speed there. Coming to these half-miles, you’ve just got to want to win these races bad, and we really, really wanted to win this race tonight.
“We got off to a good start this year, then got kind of slow, so we’re trying to make up for it now.”
Funny enough, it was Grant who initiated the drive to bring USAC sprint car racing back to Selinsgrove following a half-century absence. A couple of years ago, Grant and fellow driver Jason McDougal paid a visit to the track on their own and pleaded their case.
“We actually stopped in here one night after they were racing a few years ago and said, ‘why don’t you run us here,’ and we were told, ‘I didn’t think you guys would want to come here,’” Grant recalled. “I said, ‘we want to come here.’ This place is pretty wicked and pretty gnarly, and that’s why we drive non-winged sprint cars; we like gnarly stuff.”
Grant started fourth in the 22-car field which pole sitter Kevin Thomas Jr. had dominion over in the early going, leaving the position jockeying solely for those who trailed him. Grant cleared outside front-row starter C.J. Leary on the fifth lap for second, while Windom slipped past Leary for the fourth position a circuit later on lap six.
On the ninth lap, Windom positioned himself into the second spot with a turn three slider on Grant, then began to clamp down on race leader Thomas Jr., who had possessed a near two-second advantage over the rest of the field. By lap 11, the entire top-seven in the running order ran nose-to-tail behind Thomas.
With 12 laps down, Windom made a move under Thomas to try to snare the lead. Windom came up a half car length short at the line but continued to grind until opportunity came knocking and pulled ahead of Thomas with a slide job for the lead in turn one mere moments later.
Thomas fought back on the bottom, engaging side-by-side with Windom down the back straightway and through turns three and four, but momentum was on Windom’s side as he used the banking up on the top side to drive back past Thomas to lead by a single car length at the stripe.
A single lap later, Grant followed suit and moved up the ladder to second place with a pass on Thomas. USAC National Sprint Car rookie and USAC Rapid Tire East Coast Sprint Car Series standout Briggs Danner sliced his way to the third position and was steadily charging when he made a self-pronounced “rookie mistake,” jumping the turn two cushion and pancaking the guardrail.
Grant suddenly began to close the gap between he and race leader Windom with a little bit of traffic in play. Windom had been running the top routinely throughout the first 23 laps, but made the decision to enter on the bottom of turns three and four. Grant, in turn, stuck it up top near and rode the fence right to the race lead.
“It was going to be tough to pass anybody and the cushion was getting really high off two, but it wasn’t to the wall yet,” Grant recalled. “So, I started diamonding one and two off, and it was just enough to show Chris a nose up off the bottom and he peeled to the bottom of three and four where we were able to commit back to the curb and circle him.”
Windom’s race went from good to bad to ugly within a half-mile span. Soon after Windom relinquished the lead, Wednesday night’s Bridgeport winner Ballou emerged into the fray and set up his shot at Windom for second. Instead, things went awry, with Ballou tossing a slider toward Windom in turn three when the two made contact, sending Windom airborne and into the outside guardrail.
Windom immediately slowed with a flat left rear tire, bringing about the first caution of the evening on lap 25 and ending his night, for all intents and purposes. Windom returned but finished 15th.
“I want to say sorry to Chris,” Ballou later said. “I ran in there and had too much speed. I was going to knock the fence down and I checked up and, when I checked up, I got in a four-wheel slide, and I slid up. I didn’t see him until he got my right rear. I wouldn’t want to do that to anybody, so I’m sorry for that.”
Meanwhile, under the yellow, Danner, who would’ve assumed third on the restart six laps remaining, was forced to the sidelines when his right rear tire ultimately deflated following his contact with the guardrail 11 laps earlier.
On the restart with six laps to go, Ballou made his final bids for a second-straight victory. Two successive tries to get past Grant proved unsuccessful for Ballou, as he was able to pull alongside Grant on both ends of the race track, but was unable to edge ahead. Instead, he filed into line behind Grant as the laps wound down and the distance between the two grew more substantial.
Grant disallowed any further challenges by extending the interval between he and Ballou, cementing his possession of a second Eastern Storm victory this week and closing out Selinsgrove by a 3.061-second margin over Ballou, Leary, Thomas and Brady Bacon, who rounded out the top-five.
Ballou finished as the runner-up and extended his Eastern Storm point lead to four over Grant with two races remaining, Saturday at Port Royal Speedway and Sunday at Bloomsburg Fair Raceway.
During Fatheadz Qualifying, Windom collected his 12th career Fatheadz Eyewear Fast Qualifying time with the USAC AMSOIL National Sprint Car Series, tying him for 39th all-time with Steve Chassey, Elmer George, Rick Hood, Jud Larson, Bill Puterbaugh and Joe Saldana.
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