OCALA, Fla. — Justin Grant raced to the lead on the second lap of Friday night’s series-opening Winter Dirt Games XIII 30-lap feature at Bubba Raceway Park, then had the 23-car field covered en route to capturing his 10th career USAC NOS Energy Drink Midget National Championship triumph.
Grant became the fourth (Tyler Courtney, Thomas Meseraull and Chris Windom) driver to have won both a USAC midget and sprint car feature at the five-eighths-mile track.
Grant’s four combined victories at Bubba’s equals him with Brady Bacon and Courtney as the winningest driver at the track in USAC competition.
After taking 23 races to grab his first win with RMS in 2021, Grant wasted no time winning this season. Grant chalks it up to a process that truly began to hit its stride late last season, which resulted in four wins, including two in his last four outings. Now, you can make that three out of five dating back to last November.
“It took me a long time to get my feet under me with a new team, and it was frustrating there for a long time last year,” Grant admitted. “We were able to get there toward the end of last year, and to unload again with a lot of speed is really good. This car was awesome tonight, and it was good from start to finish. It felt really, really good there in the feature and I still had aways to go on my shocks if I needed to as the track was slickening up.”
Grant began his race from the outside of the front row but found himself mired in third at the line at the conclusion of lap one a car length behind polesitter Cannon McIntosh and a wheel behind Emerson Axsom.
However, things changed rapidly when Grant immediately dove to the bottom of turn one, sliding even-Steven with McIntosh through turn two and halfway down the back straightaway before emerging ahead on the top in turn three.
A tenacious scramble saw Axsom momentarily drop to fourth behind Kofoid on lap four, then retaliate with a double slider into turn three past both Kofoid and McIntosh to regain the second spot, a position he’d occupy throughout much of the remainder of the event.
By halfway, Grant’s one second lead began to shrink as he became stagnated in the throes of traffic. As Grant attempted to navigate his way past the 20th– place car of Floridian Frank Beck, Axsom closed the gap up right to the tail tank of Grant. An evasive move by Grant underneath Beck in turn one on lap 16 negated all the ground Axsom made up.
As Grant gapped his rivals, Thorson pulled even with Axsom midway down the back straight, but Axsom escaped the fray by driving around the outside of Beck, while Thorson connected his front bumper with Beck’s back bumper, sending Beck into an unexpected drift with all continuing on.
With three laps remaining, Thorson gained an enormous amount of momentum off turn two and made an energetic run at Axsom entering turn three. As Thorson pulled even, Axsom pushed up the track, and Thorson was able to scoot by.
The battled raged into the final lap as Thorson split low and Axsom high around 19th running Mariah Ede in turn one. But, by the time Axsom reached turn two, his right-rear tire began to deflate.
Up front, Grant had crossed under the checkered flag to score the victory. Behind him, following contact to his rear bumper from a trailing car, Axsom glanced the outside wall and began flipping wildly in turn three. He was able to crawl from the wreckage under his own power but gone was a potential podium finish which had quickly deviated into a crumpled racecar and bitter disappointment with a 12th-place result.
Thorson finished second with Brenham Crouch third. Irvin King Hard Charger Thomas Meseraull finished fourth after starting 13th while Buddy Kofoid rounded out the top five.
Earlier in the evening, Thorson earned the 24th Fatheadz Eyewear Fast Qualifying time of his USAC National Midget career. After driving from his 6th starting position to a runner-up finish in two consecutive years during the Ocala opener, Thorson has now also finished inside the top-two in each of the last three season openers.
“We were really fast, and we had a good car,” Thorson stated. “I felt like if I hadn’t gotten caught up behind some of the lapped cars almost every lap, I might’ve been able to give Justin a shot. We’ve just got to get this thing a little bit better and have a little bit of luck with lapped cars, but, overall, I’m happy with it.”
Brenham Crouch enjoyed the best finish of his USAC National Midget career, finishing third in his Keith Kunz-Curb-Agajanian Motorsports/Toyota – TRD – Curb Records/Bullet By Spike/Speedway Toyota.
“This was awesome,” an elated Crouch exclaimed. “We struggled a little bit last year, and it feels good to start off on the right foot this time around.”