OCALA, Fla. — For the third time in less than a week, Justin Grant won a USAC national feature event at Bubba Raceway Park.
The latest of the batch came in Friday night’s rain-plagued USAC AMSOIL Sprint Car National Championship feature. The triumph came a week after he swept both USAC NOS Energy Drink Midget National Championship events at the three-eighths-mile dirt track.
In a feature that started at 1 a.m. local time due to a nearly three-hour rain delay, Grant swept around the outside of Carson Short on lap three, then staved off a handful of late race cautions to earn his first series victory of the year in his TOPP Motorsports/NOS Energy Drink – MPV Express – TOPP Industries – LA Poly/Maxim/Kistler Chevy.
It was Grant’s 29th career USAC national sprint car triumph.
“I was really confident in our car,” Grant explained. “I felt like I could make enough time getting off four and going back to the bottom of one, that even if someone was really better, I didn’t know what they were really going to be able to do with me. I felt pretty good there and I just needed to not make any mistakes and bring the thing home.”
Grant started on the pole, but chased Short for the first two circuits. On the third lap, Grant’s persistence paid off as he carved to the inside of Short and burst off turn two with the lead in his grasp. Short, nonetheless, continued to scrap and bolted around the outside of Grant on the back straightaway while completing the fourth lap. As Short exited turn four, however, a slight step-out slashed his momentum as Grant powered by at the exit to reassume the lead.
Short stopped on the track after 16 laps and fast-qualifier Buddy Kofoid became a player on the restart, taking second from Thursday night winner Emerson Axsom.
On the 24th lap, contact between Thomas Meseraull’s right front and Jason McDougal’s left rear in between turns one and two sent the eighth running Meseraull spinning to a stop and the seventh-place car of McDougal slowing dramatically with a flat left- rear tire. As Meseraull’s car rested near the outside wall, a brief moment later, Ballou nosed right into Meseraull’s right rear, sending Ballou’s machine snapping around and catching the wall.
Grant escaped Kofoid’s pursuit on the lap-24 restart and reconstructed a 1.2 second lead with three laps to go when eighth-running C.J. Leary lost power in turn four. Ninth place Brady Bacon had nowhere to go and ran into the back of Leary, resulting in both drivers stopping.
Grant went topside down the stretch with Kofoid hanging in the wings about five car lengths back of Grant and not in position to make a last-ditch effort to put it in victory lane for the first time in his USAC sprint car career.
Grant finished.636 seconds ahead of Buddy Kofoid, with Axsom, Chase Stockon and Tanner Thorson rounding out the top five.
It was a podium featuring the veteran Grant and a pair of series rookies and midget racing standouts.
“These guys are tough, Buddy and Emerson, they race so hard coming out of midgets,” Grant said. “I’m having a ton of fun racing with those guys and am looking forward to racing with them as the year goes on in the sprint cars.”
Kofoid zipped from sixth to second to earn his best career USAC AMSOIL National Sprint Car finish aboard his Keith Kunz-Curb-Agajanian Motorsports/Curb Records – Mobil 1 – IWX/Spike/Speedway Chevy.
“This was by far the best I’ve ever felt in a non-winged sprint car,” Kofoid praised. “I think we were a little on the tight side this time and a little low air pressure hurt us at times. Once I got going, I felt like I was just as fast as Justin. He’s been really good here and hopefully tomorrow we can beat him.”
Axsom is the USAC National Sprint Car point leader and is the high point man in the Winter Dirt Games XIII Sprint Car standings going into Saturday night.
“I’m just glad we had a good run tonight so we can’t say last night was a fluke,” Axsom stated. “That was on me to have a good run and I feel like we did. We were really solid; it’s just that these guys are really good up here in front of me. It’s tough to beat them and we must be on our A-game.”