Justin Grant (Ione, Calif.) celebrates his second career Bettenhausen 100 victory on Saturday at the Illinois State Fairgrounds. (Rich Forman Photo) (Video Highlights from FloRacing.com)
By: Richie Murray – USAC Media
Springfield, Illinois (August 17, 2024)………The Illinois State Fairgrounds have and always will occupy a special place in the racing career of Justin Grant.
The Ione, California driver’s first career USAC Silver Crown victory of any kind arrived at the Springfield Mile in 2017. Three years later in 2020, Grant clinched his first USAC Silver Crown driving championship with a podium run at the historic dirt oval.
His latest score on Saturday afternoon tasted just as sweet as he delivered his second career Springfield triumph aboard his Hemelgarn Racing/NOS Energy Drink – Super Fitness – Hemelgarn Enterprises/DRC/Speedway Chevy in the 61st running of the Bettenhausen 100 Presented By Hunt Brothers Pizza.
Grant’s performance may have been among the most dominating in the six-decade history of the Bettenhausen 100. Grant executed a complete sweep of the festivities, timing in as the quickest overall in Dirt Draft Practice before promptly going out and laying down the fastest lap in Honest Abe Roofing Qualifying. To close out the day, he became the first driver to lead all 100 miles of the Bettenhausen 100 from start to finish since Kody Swanson a decade ago in 2014.
To kick off the day, Grant tied the record for most pole positions at the Bettenhausen 100 dating back to its inaugural running in 1961. Grant’s third pole position in the event tied him with him Greg Weld, Jerry Coons Jr. and Kody Swanson for number one all-time.
Later in the day, Grant etched his name in the books as the 13th driver to capture multiple Bettenhausen 100 victories in his career, joining an all-star cast featuring Chuck Gurney, A.J. Foyt, Jack Hewitt, Brian Tyler, Mario Andretti, Dave Darland, Kody Swanson, Al Unser, Gary Bettenhausen, A.J. Fike, Jim Hurtubise and Bobby Olivero.
In the present, however, Grant’s victory arrived at Springfield on the heels of a second place finish just about 15 hours earlier on the pavement of World Wide Technology Raceway in Madison, Ill., which has closed the gap to 21 between him and point leader Kody Swanson in the pursuit of the 2024 USAC Silver Crown championship.
Grant has had a firm grip of late on the Illinois dirt miles in USAC Silver Crown competition, leading 199 of the past 200 laps between his victory last September at the Du Quoin State Fairgrounds and his latest triumph in Springfield. With seven top-four results in 10 series starts this season, they’ve been close to breaking through. But on Saturday, it wasn’t close anymore. Finally, it was “all cigar.”
“We won the Du Quoin race at the end of last year, and then to come here and win at the Springfield Mile, it feels really good,” Grant exclaimed. “We’ve been coming alive here of late, but it’s been good all year. We’ve been racking them up here lately and it feels really rewarding. We kind of lost some speed for a year or two but we’ve worked really hard to get it back, and (team owner) Ron Hemelgarn has given us all the resources we need, and (crew chief) Dennis (LaCava) worked really, really hard to get us back here.”
Furthermore, Grant also tied an all-time record by notching feature wins in all three USAC national divisions in 2024: Silver Crown, AMSOIL Sprint and NOS Energy Drink Midget. This year marks the sixth time he’s achieved the feat in his career, tying Dave Steele for number one on the list. It’s also the fourth straight year Grant has won races in all three series, one shy of Steele’s record run of five consecutive seasons between 2001-2005.
Grant’s Springfield score was the sixth win of his USAC Silver Crown career, moving him to 20th on the list alongside Tom Bigelow, Russ Gamester, Kenny Irwin Jr., Jason Leffler, Ken Schrader and Al Unser. His 10th career Silver Crown pole award elevated him to seventh place all-time on the same line as Bobby East and Rich Vogler.
As far as the race itself, it was, for all intents and purposes, an immaculate run for Grant that was perfectly clean, neat and tidy, free from any flaws, mistakes or mishaps. The same fate didn’t present itself to his challengers who were among the 40 cars on hand for the event. On the third lap, Korey Weyant and Steve Gennetten touched wheels in turn three as the two jockeyed for the 18th position. As a result, both drivers careened into the outside wall with Gennetten flipping over. Both drivers climbed out of their cars without injury, but severely dejected.
The major mover throughout the first half of the 100-miler was Shane Cockrum. Despite qualifying 15th, he was relegated to the Elliott’s Custom Trailers & Carts Qualifying Race due to missing his spot in qualifying by three or more positions. After winning the qualifying race, the 2022 Bettenhausen 100 winner started 25th in the feature and had worked his way up to seventh by lap 49.
Shane Cottle had run a close second to Grant for the first 61 miles before trouble befell him on lap 62. That’s the moment when his car went up in smoke, ending his bid for a first career Bettenhausen 100 victory after finishing as the runner-up in each of the two most recent editions in 2022-2023. Cottle’s exodus moved Swanson up to the second position in the running order with 39 laps remaining.
Just five laps later, with Cockrum running sixth, his monster run also went up in a blaze of smoke on the 67th lap., thus knocking him out the race as the yellow flag flew for his slowly coasting machine. Despite his early exit, Cockrum was rewarded for his +19 efforts with the Inferno Armor Move of the Day. It seemed fitting for Cockrum, whose full-time job is his role as the fire chief of the city of Benton, Illinois.
In the waning laps, all Grant had to do was maintain his pace and successfully navigate his way around a bit of lapped traffic. His one second lead briefly dissipated on lap 88 as he fought his way past the 19th and 18th place cars of Dave Berkheimer and Chris Fetter, respectively, on the back straight. That allowed Swanson to close to within three car lengths of Grant for the top spot. Yet, it only proved to be momentary, as Grant cleared the pair and subsequently reclaimed his interval, and then some, to the tune of nearly three seconds.
“We had an amazing car,” Grant proclaimed. “The thing was an absolute rocket ship, and I could carry so much speed through the center of the corner and not slip the tires at all. I kept trying to slow my lap times down a little bit and the only way I could do it was just to crawl through the center of the corner, and I didn’t feel like it was using any tire to go this fast. We still had a bunch of tire left.”
When Grant triumphantly flashed across the finish line for the 100th and final time during the afternoon, he was 3.835 seconds to the good, prevailing over Kody Swanson with Logan Seavey, Jerry Coons Jr. and Brady Bacon rounding out the top-five.
“It feels really good to come out of here with a win,” a satisfied Grant stated. “To beat Kody, he’s awfully good at this stuff. He’s one of my best friends in the whole world, but we go out and race each other tooth and nail and have a good time.”
The top-three in the current USAC Silver Crown standings just so happened to finish one-two-three at Springfield. The point leader, Kody Swanson of Kingsburg, Calif., maintained his 21-point advantage over Grant with a second place result in his Doran-Binks Racing/Mission Foods – Wilke Orthodontics – Glenn Farms/Maxim/Hampshire Chevy.
“We just had to be faster,” Swanson stated. “You never know when you’re catching them. It could be just because he’s letting you. But I’m really proud of this Doran-Binks Racing team. To continue to try to get better on the dirt is something I’ve been struggling with. But the effort has been there. I’m really thankful to have a good run, but I still want to win. We had a great run, had a great car, but Justin did a good job, and he put it on us there.”
Logan Seavey (Sutter, Calif.) has become accustomed to finishing on the podium at Springfield. On Saturday, he registered his fourth consecutive top-three finish in the event following a 2nd in 2021, a 3rd in 2022, a 1st in 2023 and a 3rd in 2024 at the wheel of his Rice Motorsports-Abacus Racing/Bloomington Bison – DiaEdge – STIDA.com/DRC/Felker Chevy.
“When you start 10th like that, you have to get them early,” Seavey explained. “When everyone is trying to figure out what pace you can run, you’ve really got to go by quickly. Once they figure the pace, it’s so much harder to pass them and you have to run even harder to pass them. I got to sixth pretty quickly and then I had to run really hard there to go by Brady (Bacon) and Jerry (Coons Jr.) and I could feel pretty quickly that I blistered my right rear tire just making those two passes. I just did what I had to do to get up there and used my stuff up as much I could just to get there. I feel like that’s what hurt us there toward the end and allowed those guys to get away. (Crew chief) Ronnie Gardner did a great job with the racecar. We just started a little bit too far back.”
There's a reason why Daison Pursley (Locust Grove, Okla.) was USAC's National ProSource Passing Master champion a year ago and stands as the current point leader this year as well. He knows how to find his way to the front. After qualifying, his crew changed the right rear tire on their Team AZ Racing/Avanti Windows & Doors – Apache Transportation – Oak Craft Cabinetry/DRC/Ott Chevy, forcing them to start near the back. In what was his first run on a one-mile dirt track, he started 28th and finished ninth, the best result by a USAC Silver Crown Rookie in the event.
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USAC SILVER CROWN NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP RACE RESULTS: August 17, 2024 – Illinois State Fairgrounds – Springfield, Illinois – 1-Mile Dirt Oval – 61st Bettenhausen 100 Presented By Hunt Brothers Pizza
HONEST ABE ROOFING QUALIFYING: (Top-24 locked into the feature) 1. Justin Grant, 91, Hemelgarn-31.641; 2. Kody Swanson, 77, Doran/Binks-31.974; 3. Trey Osborne, 81, BCR-32.081; 4. Shane Cottle, 121, Swanson-32.177; 5. Brady Bacon, 9, Dyson-32.409; 6. Jerry Coons Jr., 55, Bateman-32.693; 7. Kyle Steffens, 08, Steffens-32.765; 8. Matt Westfall, 54, Westfall-32.880; 9. Kaylee Bryson, 26, Pierce-32.911; 10. Logan Seavey, 22, Rice/Abacus-33.010; 11. Carmen Perigo, 52, Stehman-33.026; 12. Chase Stockon, 69, Pink 69-33.055; 13. Chris Urish, 177, Urish-33.066; 14. Saban Bibent, 88, Fetter-33.144; 15. Shane Cockrum, 97, Lein-33.224; 16. Mitchel Moles, 119, Reinbold/Underwood-33.227; 17. Steve Gennetten, 03, Gennetten-33.313; 18. Jimmy Light, 118, Wingo-33.358; 19. Daison Pursley, 21, Team AZ-33.385; 20. Korey Weyant, 99, Weyant-33.597; 21. Russ Gamester, 51, Gamester-33.780; 22. Chris Fetter, 15, Fetter-33.783; 23. Matt Goodnight, 24, Haggenbottom-34.123; 24. Nathan Moore, 48, Thomas/Moore-34.185; 25. Tom Savage, 38, Savage-34.361; 26. Ken Schrader, 14, McQuinn-34.370; 27. Trey Burke, 07, Tosti-34.412; 28. Danny Jennings, 61, Grace-34.457; 29. Dave Berkheimer, 31, Berkheimer-35.357; 30. Dave Peperak, 777, Peperak-35.373; 31. Aric Gentry, 3, Simmons-35.789; 32. Danny Long, 44, Long-35.874; 33. Briggs Danner, 10, DMW-51.208; 34. C.J. Leary, 6, Klatt-NT; 35. Kip Hughes, 160, Hughes-NT; 36. Mario Clouser, 60, Legacy/Wilson-NT; 37. Patrick Lawson, 2, Lawson-NT; 38. Bryan Gossel, 06, Gossel-NT; 39. Joey Moughan, 29, MSP-NT; 40. Gregg Cory, 32, Williams/Cory-NT.
ELLIOTT’S CUSTOM TRAILERS & CARTS QUALIFYING RACE: (12 laps, top-6 transfer to the feature) 1. Shane Cockrum, 2. Briggs Danner, 3. Trey Burke, 4. Danny Jennings, 5. Dave Berkheimer, 6. Ken Schrader, 7. Aric Gentry, 8. Dave Peperak, 9. Danny Long, 10. Kip Hughes, 11. Gregg Cory. 6:47.513
FEATURE: (100 laps, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Justin Grant (1), 2. Kody Swanson (2), 3. Logan Seavey (10), 4. Jerry Coons Jr. (6), 5. Brady Bacon (5), 6. Carmen Perigo (11), 7. Matt Westfall (8), 8. Kyle Steffens (7), 9. Daison Pursley (28), 10. Chase Stockon (12), 11. Russ Gamester (19), 12. Danny Jennings (30), 13. Matt Goodnight (21), 14. Briggs Danner (25), 15. Trey Osborne (3), 16. Kaylee Bryson (9), 17. Jimmy Light (17), 18. Chris Fetter (20), 19. Dave Berkheimer (27), 20. Saban Bibent (14), 21. Shane Cockrum (24), 22. Shane Cottle (4), 23. Mitchel Moles (15), 24. Nathan Moore (22), 25. Tom Savage (23), 26. Steve Gennetten (16), 27. Korey Weyant (18), 28. Trey Burke (26), 29. Chris Urish (13), 30. C.J. Leary (29-P), 31. Mario Clouser (#14) (31). NT
(P) represents a provisional starter
FEATURE LAP LEADERS: Laps 1-100 Justin Grant.
**Steve Gennetten flipped on lap 3 of the feature.
USAC SILVER CROWN NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS: 1-Kody Swanson-608, 2-Justin Grant-587, 3-Logan Seavey-550, 4-C.J. Leary-499, 5-Kaylee Bryson-388, 6-Kyle Steffens-386, 7-Bobby Santos-366, 8-Trey Osborne-337, 9-Dakoda Armstrong-329, 10-Gregg Cory-316.
USAC NATIONAL PROSOURCE PASSING MASTER POINTS: 1-Daison Pursley-166, 2-Logan Seavey-146, 3-Robert Ballou-126, 4-C.J. Leary-109, 5-Kyle Cummins-105, 6-Justin Grant-101, 7-Chase Stockon-101, 8-Joey Amantea-92, 9-Brady Bacon-90, 10-Kevin Thomas Jr.-90.
NEXT USAC SILVER CROWN NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP RACE: August 31, 2024 – Du Quoin State Fairgrounds – Du Quoin, Illinois – 1-Mile Dirt Oval – Ted Horn 100
CONTINGENCY AWARD WINNERS:
Dirt Draft Practice Fastest Driver: Justin Grant (29.548)
Honest Abe Roofing Fast Qualifier: Justin Grant (31.641)
Elliott’s Custom Trailers & Carts Qualifying Race Winner: Shane Cockrum
Hard Charger: Daison Pursley (28th to 9th)
Inferno Armor Fire Move of the Race: Shane Cockrum