By Richie Murray
Belleville, Kansas (May 16, 2025)………In each of the past two years, Justin Grant’s biggest reward on the opening night of the Huncovsky Classic was setting fast qualifying time on the Belleville Short Track in both 2023 and 2024.
On Friday night, the Ione, California native embiggened his role at the forefront of the field by capturing his first career victory at the Belleville, Kansas 1/4-mile dirt oval for what was his second consecutive victory on the 2025 USAC NOS Energy Drink Midget National Championship season.
With a 5th, 1st and 1st over his first three starts of the USAC National Midget season, Grant is the first driver to win at least two of the first three main events to begin a series season since he himself achieved the feat in 2022 after capturing three-in-a-row to kick off the campaign that year.
This time around, Grant started third on the grid and found his way to the front by lap 13 after working his way past pole sitter and racelong leader Logan Seavey during a mid-race restart. From there, Grant wheeled his CB Industries/NOS Energy Drink – PristineAuction.com – Mobil 1 – TRD/Spike/Speedway Toyota straight to victory lane in the 30-lap main.
Grant’s 19th career USAC National Midget triumph moved him into 36th place on the series’ all-time win list alongside Jerry Coons Jr., Tyler Courtney, Stan Fox and Jason Leffler. Concurrently, Grant’s active point lead grew from six to 16 by virtue of his Belleville score.
In the beginning, Seavey outpaced McIntosh to the stripe by a mere inch or two to lead the opening lap of the feature. Seavey subsequently maintained control throughout much of the first half. Meanwhile, the tussle for position behind Seavey was mounting between Grant, McIntosh and the surging Denney who had already recorded fast qualifying time and a heat race win in pursuit of a rare nightly sweep.
However, Denney was the first to find misfortune after advancing his way up into the lead pack by lap three. That’s when Denney nearly locked it up over between turns three and four. Miraculously, he managed to avoid contact from the rest of the field all while fighting to save his race from those bearing down on him. Thus, he kept on keepin’ on despite nosediving all the way back to ninth in the running order.
Soon after, McIntosh suffered his very own heartbreaking fate. While running second on lap seven, he spun to a stop after rear-end contact resulting from a collision with Grant. That promptly forced McIntosh to restart at the tail end of the field (22nd) with 24 laps to go.
From Grant’s perspective, he postulated that McIntosh was midstream in the process of changing direction from entry to exit, thus initiating the subsequent checkup which resulted in McIntosh getting the short end of the stick.
“I think he was maybe trying to diamond three and four there,” Grant pondered. “We were all kind of smoking in there wide open. He stopped to go the other direction and it was pretty glass slick coming to it. So there wasn’t a whole lot there I could do. I don’t want to get into him like that. He kind of took it out of my hands there when he stopped there getting into three.”
On a lap 13 restart following a turn two spin and stop by Hayden Reinbold, Grant found his footing and surged out in front, sliding from the bottom of turn one to the top of two to get by Seavey for the lead with nearly half the race in the books.
The feature’s lone red flag was displayed on lap 19 when 19th running Blake Spicer toppled over the turn four cushion. He was able to walk away.
On the subsequent lap 19 restart, Denney was on the move once again as he hustled from fourth to second around the outside of Seavey and new second place runner Kale Drake. The fifth starting Drake was in a prime position to net his finest run of the USAC season thus far, but ran out of space and slid over the cushion in turns three and four with five laps remaining. He’d restart at the tail but managed only to get back to 16th.
Drake’s teammate, Denney, befell a similar fate just following the restart with four laps to go. Denney fell over the turn two edge, dropping him from second to 10th in the blink of an eye as Thomas Meseraull and Kevin Thomas Jr. capitalized on the shuffling to slot themselves into second and third with less than a handful of laps to go.
It was easy living for Grant from that point forward as he stayed the course to cross the line 0.746 seconds ahead for his fifth USAC national feature score in 2025, tops among all drivers: Sprint (2), Midget (2) and Silver Crown (1). Across the three divisions, Grant now stands first in both the Midget and Silver Crown points and second in the Sprint Car standings as he pursues a $500,000 Triple Crown champion reward if he can win all three titles in 2025.
“That’s the goal, by starting out this year to go win all three championships,” Grant acknowledged. “I’m doing what I can to do my job in the seat and it’s been working out really well.”
Thomas Meseraull collected a second place result after starting back in the eighth position. His plus-six advancement was boosted with Rod End Supply Hard Charger honors as the feature’s biggest mover in the main event.
Third place finisher Kevin Thomas Jr. was superb on Friday, opening the night by winning his heat in spectacular fashion with a fourth to first move in turns one and two on the initial lap. In the feature, he charged from seventh to third for his best finish of the USAC National Midget season thus far.
Rookie Steven Snyder Jr. took fourth while Cannon McIntosh rounded out the top-five with a valiant run from the tail. For the final 24 laps, McIntosh picked his way from 22nd place to crack the top-five for the third time in row to start the season. That earned Cannon the Inferno Armor Fire Move of the Night.
Jacob Denney’s fast time during Honest Abe Roof Qualifying was the third of his USAC National Midget career. It’s the third consecutive year he’s earned at least one USAC National Midget fast qualifying time.
Jerry Coons Jr. and his son, Cale Coons both made their way into the feature lineup. Together, they became the 14th father/child duo to compete in the same USAC National Midget feature, joining Ted & Gene Hartley, Danny & George Kladis, Don & Rich Vogler, Bob & Bobby Wente, Bob & Terry Wente, Buddie & Trevor Boys, Jim & Ted Hines, Norm & Travis Young, Leon & Brady Bacon, Ryan & Randy Oerter, Ryan & Ashley Oerter and Joe & Clinton Boyles. As fate would have it, both generations of Coons started the feature side-by-side in row eight. When all was said and done, Jerry took 13th and Cale 15th at the checkered.
USAC NOS ENERGY DRINK MIDGET NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP RACE RESULTS: May 16, 2025 – Belleville Short Track – Belleville, Kansas – 1/4-Mile Dirt Oval – Huncovsky Classic
HONEST ABE ROOFING QUALIFYING: 1. Jacob Denney, 67, Kunz/Curb-Agajanian-11.994; 2. Kale Drake, 97K, Kunz/Curb-Agajanian-12.031; 3. Cannon McIntosh, 71K, Kunz/Curb-Agajanian-12.052; 4. Justin Grant, 87, CBI-12.061; 5. Hayden Reinbold, 19AZ, Reinbold/Underwood-12.096; 6. Logan Seavey, 57, Abacus-12.103; 7. Steven Snyder Jr., 4, RMS-12.125; 8. Drake Edwards, 83, CBI-12.161; 9. Kevin Thomas Jr., 14, 4 Kings-12.203; 10. Gavin Miller, 97, Kunz/Curb-Agajanian-12.222; 11. Gunnar Setser, 43, Arnold-12.224; 12. Kyle Jones, 27x, Joyner-12.243; 13. Garrett Benson, 7B, Engler-12.250; 14. Thomas Meseraull, 7x, Engler-12.285; 15. Jerry Coons Jr., 85, Central-12.292; 16. Cale Coons, 63, Dooling/Curb-Agajanian-12.350; 17. Brandon Carr, 98K, Kunz/Curb-Agajanian-12.476; 18. Mack Leopard, 86, CBI-12.480; 19. Chelby Hinton, 4B, Klatt-12.489; 20. Lance Bennett, 91, Mason-12.542; 21. Zack Merritt, 43m, Oerter-12.704; 22. Blake Spicer, 4s, Spicer-13.243; 23. Ashley Oerter, 16, Oerter-14.344; 24. John Webster, 43J, Oerter-NT.
CAR IQ FIRST HEAT: (10 laps, all transfer to the feature) 1. Jacob Denney, 2. Steven Snyder Jr., 3. Justin Grant, 4. Gavin Miller, 5. Garrett Benson, 6. Cale Coons, 7. Blake Spicer, 8. Chelby Hinton. NT
K1 RACEGEAR SECOND HEAT: (10 laps, all transfer to the feature) 1. Thomas Meseraull, 2. Kale Drake, 3. Drake Edwards, 4. Gunnar Setser, 5. Hayden Reinbold, 6. Lance Bennett, 7. Brandon Carr. NT
USACGEAR.COM THIRD HEAT: (10 laps, all transfer to the feature) 1. Kevin Thomas Jr., 2. Cannon McIntosh, 3. Logan Seavey, 4. Kyle Jones, 5. Jerry Coons Jr., 6. Mack Leopard, 7. Zack Merritt, 8. John Webster. NT
FEATURE: (30 laps, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Justin Grant (3), 2. Thomas Meseraull (8), 3. Kevin Thomas Jr. (7), 4. Steven Snyder Jr. (9), 5. Cannon McIntosh (4), 6. Logan Seavey (1), 7. Kyle Jones (13), 8. Gunnar Setser (12), 9. Jacob Denney (6), 10. Gavin Miller (11), 11. Drake Edwards (10), 12. Garrett Benson (14), 13. Jerry Coons Jr. (15), 14. Mack Leopard (18), 15. Cale Coons (16), 16. Kale Drake (5), 17. Brandon Carr (17), 18. Hayden Reinbold (2), 19. Zack Merritt (21), 20. Lance Bennett (20), 21. Blake Spicer (22), 22. John Webster (24), 23. Ashley Oerter (23), 24. Chelby Hinton (19). NT
FEATURE LAP LEADERS: Laps 1-12 Logan Seavey, Laps 13-30 Justin Grant.
**Lance Bennett flipped during hot laps. Blake Spicer flipped on lap 19 of the feature.
USAC NOS ENERGY DRINK MIDGET NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS: 1-Justin Grant-229, 2-Cannon McIntosh-213, 3-Steven Snyder Jr.-195, 4-Jacob Denney-188, 5-Logan Seavey-181, 6-Kale Drake-170, 7-Kevin Thomas Jr.-167, 8-Drake Edwards-162, 9-Gavin Miller-156, 10-Gunnar Setser-141.
USAC PARALLAX GROUP NATIONAL PASSING MASTER POINTS: 1-Kale Drake-98, 2-C.J. Leary-48, 3-Briggs Danner-41, 4-Robert Ballou-35, 5-Chase Stockon-31, 6-Jadon Rogers-30, 7-Gunnar Setser-28, 8-Justin Grant-27, 9-Kyle Cummins-23, 10-Kevin Thomas Jr.-21.
NEXT USAC NOS ENERGY DRINK MIDGET NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP RACE: May 17, 2025 – Belleville Short Track – Belleville, Kansas – 1/4-Mile Dirt Oval – Huncovsky Classic
CONTINGENCY AWARD WINNERS:
Dirt Draft Hot Laps Fastest Driver: Gunnar Setser (12.038)
Honest Abe Roofing Fast Qualifier: Jacob Denney (11.994)
Car IQ First Heat Winner: Jacob Denney
K1 RaceGear Second Heat Winner: Thomas Meseraull
USACgear.com Third Heat Winner: Kevin Thomas Jr.
Rod End Supply Hard Charger: Thomas Meseraull (8th to 2nd)
Inferno Armor Fire Move of the Night: Cannon McIntosh