Justin Grant Claims Victory At Terre Haute
Justin Grant Claims Victory At Terre Haute
Justin Grant overcame obstacles early in the night, and early in his career, at Terre Haute to capture the victory in Friday's Jim Hurtubise Classic.
Justin Grant remembers going a long way in his first visit to the Terre Haute Action Track in 2010.
Friday night, the Ione, Calif. native in the race showed he’s come a long way in another aspect. Grant took home the win in the 20th running of the Jim Hurtubise Classic for USAC AMSOIL National Sprint Cars,. It was also his first Sprint Car win of any kind at the track.
“In my first race here in 2010, I sailed it out of the park in turn one and I smashed a guy’s Buick or Plymouth, or something, whatever it was,” Grant recalled. “I made it a long way out there too. Terre Haute had my number for quite a while and it’s taken me nine years to finally get a win here, but we did it, and it feels really good. At one point, it was probably my worst track on the tour. To come here and win, it means a lot to me personally.”
Rewatch Grant's win at Terre Haute:
Grant, a 2018 Sumar Classic Silver Crown winner at Terre Haute, had a topsy-turvy turn of events to begin his night. Shortly after racing from fifth to first to win the first heat race, Grant encountered trouble on his cooldown lap that nearly spelled complete disaster.
“We had a left front radius rod come apart, and you can’t steer,” Grant explained. “The axle rolls back and falls off the arm. I lifted off of (turn) two, and halfway down the back stretch, it started squirrelling all around and I thought ‘Whoa, we got a problem here.’ I knew the front end was falling out, and when you get on the brakes, it just folds them up. I was just trying to coast it to a stop; I got it whoa’d down pretty slow, then it dropped, and the frame rail dug in and it just turned me right into the inside wall. Luckily, it just front-bumpered into it. No harm, no foul. We brought it back, put a bolt in it and we were ready for the feature.”
If the incident would’ve occurred one lap earlier, the outcome and the progression of the night could’ve been disastrously different. However, on this particular night, in the first ever USAC National event held simultaneously on Friday the 13th and with a full moon hovering overhead, perhaps good fortune was on his side.
Watch Justin Grant go through a build:
Grant rolled off for the 30-lap feature win from the third position and it took no time flat for him to race his way into the lead. He moved passed pole sitter Nick Bilbee in the first turn to secure the lead while Jason McDougal, who started in seventh, charged all the way to second by the conclusion of the opening lap.
In the ensuing laps, Kevin Thomas, Jr., Brady Bacon and Tyler Courtney had worked their way around McDougal to occupy positions two, three, and four to form a triumvirate in their pursuit to run down Grant with seven laps completed.
Grant was introduced to lapped traffic by the 10th lap, allowing Thomas to close the gap to under a second. The lapped cars of Dustin Christie and Aric Gentry battled for position in their own right, but Grant escaped from Thomas for the time being. He maneuvered around the outside of Christie off turn four, then dove low, sliding by Gentry at the entrance of turn one.
Thomas kept Grant in check, and as Grant slid into the fluff on the outside of turn two on the 11th lap, Thomas used a massive run to drive by Gentry and charge into turn three side-by-side momentarily to the inside of Grant. But Grant remained in control past halfway, until lap 18, when Thomas went on the attack once again. He threw a monster slider on Grant, who was able to keep a firm grip of the lead as he split the lapped cars of Steve Thomas and Dustin Smith to sneak away and increase the interval to 2.5 seconds.
Courtney, who had won three of the last five USAC AMSOIL National Sprint Car features at Terre Haute entering the night, had carved his way into second under Thomas on the 21st lap. Meanwhile, Grant was sitting pretty up front with a comfortable lead.
With just five laps remaining, Grant’s two-plus second lead was deleted when two-time Jim Hurtubise Classic winner and fourth place running Brady Bacon encountered trouble and heavy right-side damage, coming to a rest against the turn one wall.
“I didn’t want to see that,” Grant said of the yellow flag. “I knew I had gotten through lapped traffic pretty quickly for as thick it was. We were honestly in a pretty good rhythm. Here, you never want to see a yellow when you’re leading. The front stretch is so long and so slick, and if you slide yourself, there’s nothing off of two and you’re a sitting duck. You can’t block the slider; you just hope you get a good enough restart and you can beat the slider to the center.”
Courtney reared back on the restart and fired his machine to the bottom in hope to slide up in front of Grant by turn two. But Grant never wavered. He kept his right foot on the throttle and squeezed through to the minuscule peak of daylight between Courtney and the concrete wall to his outside.
Courtney took his shot and sold out for the lead in the process, as Grant shot back out to a half-second advantage. Thomas took advantage of Courtney’s loss of momentum exiting the second turn to move back to second. In the final laps, Thomas utilized a line lower than Grant’s top side ride, but wasn’t able to get close enough to fire off a slide job for the top spot.
Grant, meanwhile, raced to his third USAC AMSOIL National Sprint Car points win of the season by 0.925 of a second advantage over Thomas, Courtney, Chris Windom and series points leader C.J. Leary.
Grant’s 16th career feature victory moved him into a tie with Damion Gardner for 33rd on the all-time win list. The victory vaulted Grant past Bobby East, Cory Kruseman, Jud Larson and Brian Tyler on the same list.
Chase Stockon, who started 2nd and finished 7th in Friday’s feature, reached a milestone by making his record 285th consecutive USAC AMSOIL National Sprint Car feature start since the 2012 season. He surpassed the previous record of 284 set by Levi Jones.
Contingency award winners at Terre Haute Action Track:
- Chris Windom (Fatheadz Eyewear Fast Qualifier)
- Justin Grant (Simpson Race Products First Heat Winner)
- Carson Short (Competition Suspension, Inc. Second Heat Winner)
- Tyler Courtney (AutoMeter Third Heat Winner & KSE Racing Products Hard Charger)
- Bill Rose (Indy Race Parts Semi Winner)
- Dustin Smith (Roger & Barb Tapy 13th Fastest Qualifier & Wilwood Brakes 13th Place Finisher)
- Eric Perrott (Saldana Racing Products First Non-Transfer)
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USAC AMSOIL SPRINT CAR NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP RACE RESULTS:
September 13 – Terre Haute Action Track – Terre Haute, Indiana – 20th Jim Hurtubise Classic
FATHEADZ EYEWEAR QUALIFYING: 1. Chris Windom, 5G, Goacher-20.094; 2. Kevin Thomas, Jr., 19, Hayward/Thomas-20.175; 3. C.J. Leary, 19AZ, Reinbold/Underwood-20.176; 4. Justin Grant, 4, TOPP-20.230; 5. Chase Stockon, 32, 32 TBI-20.233; 6. Nick Bilbee, 17, Bilbee-20.275; 7. Jason McDougal, 71p, Daigh/Phillips-20.288; 8. Carson Short, 21, RCM-20.302; 9. Tyler Courtney, 7BC, Clauson/Marshall/Newman-20.437; 10. Brady Bacon, 69, Dynamics-20.458; 11. Josh Hodges, 74x, Hodges-20.520; 12. Bill Rose, 6, Rose-20.528; 13. Dustin Smith, 77, Smith-20.652; 14. Mitch Wissmiller, 29, Barker-20.703; 15. Isaac Chapple, 52, LNR/Chapple-20.835; 16. Brian VanMeveren, 24, VanMeveren-20.889; 17. Max Adams, 5m, Adams-20.957; 18. Dustin Christie, 75, Christie-21.117; 19. Kyle Robbins, 17R, KR-21.134; 20. Tye Mihocko, 5, Mihocko-21.532; 21. Steve Thomas, 20, Thomas-21.913; 22. Jake Simmons, 3, Simmons-21.932; 23. Paul May, 71m, May-21.978; 24. Aric Gentry, 10, Gentry-22.026; 25. Eric Perrott, 45, Perrott-23.370; 26. Brandon Mattox, 28, Mattox-NT; 27. Patrick Budde, 90, Budde-NT.
SIMPSON RACE PRODUCTS FIRST HEAT: (8 laps, top-5 transfer to the feature) 1. Justin Grant, 2. Brady Bacon, 3. Chris Windom, 4. Jason McDougal, 5. Brian VanMeveren, 6. Kyle Robbins, 7. Jake Simmons, 8. Dustin Smith. 2:46.85
COMPETITION SUSPENSION (CSI) SECOND HEAT: (8 laps, top-5 transfer to the feature) 1. Carson Short, 2. Chase Stockon, 3. Kevin Thomas, Jr., 4. Josh Hodges, 5. Mitch Wissmiller, 6. Max Adams, 7. Aric Gentry, 8. Tye Mihocko. 2:48.36
AUTOMETER THIRD HEAT: (8 laps, top-5 transfer to the feature) 1. Tyler Courtney, 2. C.J. Leary, 3. Nick Bilbee, 4. Isaac Chapple, 5. Dustin Christie, 6. Bill Rose, 7. Steve Thomas, 8. Eric Perrott. NT
INDY RACE PARTS SEMI: (10 laps, top-7 transfer to the feature) 1. Bill Rose, 2. Dustin Smith, 3. Aric Gentry, 4. Max Adams, 5. Tye Mihocko, 6. Kyle Robbins, 7. Steve Thomas, 8. Eric Perrott, 9. Jake Simmons. 3:41.71
FEATURE: (30 laps, starting position in parentheses) 1. Justin Grant (3), 2. Kevin Thomas, Jr. (5), 3. Tyler Courtney (9), 4. Chris Windom (6), 5. C.J. Leary (4), 6. Jason McDougal (7), 7. Chase Stockon (2), 8. Nick Bilbee (1), 9. Josh Hodges (11), 10. Carson Short (8), 11. Max Adams (17), 12. Isaac Chapple (15), 13. Dustin Smith (13), 14. Kyle Robbins (19), 15. Dustin Christie (18), 16. Aric Gentry (22), 17. Steve Thomas (21), 18. Brady Bacon (10), 19. Tye Mihocko (20), 20. Brian VanMeveren (16), 21. Mitch Wissmiller (14), 22. Bill Rose (12). NT
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FEATURE LAP LEADERS: Laps 1-30 Justin Grant
KSE RACING PRODUCTS HARD CHARGER: Tyler Courtney (9th to 3rd)
WILWOOD BRAKES 13TH PLACE FINISHER: Dustin Smith
SALDANA RACING PRODUCTS FIRST NON-TRANSFER: Eric Perrott
ROGER & BARB TAPY 13TH FASTEST QUALIFIER: Dustin Smith
NEW USAC AMSOIL SPRINT CAR NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS: 1-C.J. Leary-1,771, 2-Tyler Courtney-1,653, 3-Justin Grant-1,606, 4-Kevin Thomas, Jr.-1,602, 5-Brady Bacon-1,598, 6-Chris Windom-1,568, 7-Chase Stockon-1,533, 8-Jason McDougal-1,354, 9-Carson Short-1,324, 10-Isaac Chapple-1,035.
NEXT USAC AMSOIL SPRINT CAR NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP RACE: September 14, 2019 – Tri-State Speedway – Haubstadt, Indiana – “Haubstadt Hustler” - Co-Sanctioned by the Midwest Sprint Car Series