From Richie Murray
PARAGON, IN (September 26, 2025) — Mitchel Moles had done just about everything there is to do in USAC AMSOIL Sprint Car National Championship competition this season. But a feature win had eluded him time and time again.
Sixty-one races after last reaching victory lane with the series, the Raisin City, California native finally broke through in photo finish fashion by mere inches over Kyle Cummins during Friday night’s Fall Brawl at Indiana’s Paragon Speedway.
As a matter of fact, Moles had finished as the runner-up on five occasions with the series this year alone. The .021 second margin of victory by Moles over Cummins was the closest of the year with the series, and this time, Moles wasn’t about to let this one slip through his fingers.
“We’ve been so close so many times this year,” Moles exhaled after taking his Reinbold-Underwood Motorsports/AME – Mesilla Valley Transportation/Spike/Stanton Chevy to victory lane. “It feels great to finally get the job done. Maybe that means I’ll keep my job next year!”
Moles also quipped that he remained undefeated at Paragon’s 3/8-mile dirt oval in his career. His only other trip to the track in July 2024 resulted in a Leon Gentry Memorial score with the USAC Midwest Thunder Sprint Cars. Overall, it was Moles’ fifth career USAC National Sprint Car victory, and one that is most rewarding in what has been a turnaround year which sees him second overall in the series standings.
“We’ve won some races here and there but crashed a lot and learned a lot from that,” Moles summed up since joining Reinbold-Underwood Motorsports in 2022. “I’m thankful for Tammi and Andy (Reinbold) for being great owners and sticking with a kid that tore up all their equipment and had to buy all new stuff. Hopefully, this is a road to paying it off for them.”
Foreshadowing the feature, Moles was involved in a bit of a dust up during his heat race after attempting to make an outside pass on Chance Crum for the win. At the stripe, Moles and Crum collided, with Crum winning the race while airborne. Meanwhile, Moles careened into the infield, short of the victory, but transferring into the feature with dramatic flair where he earned the fourth starting spot.
The majority of the first half of the 30-lap feature was controlled by Logan Seavey who raced out to the front from his outside front row starting spot and maintained a sturdy advantage at the head of the pack in the first USAC National Sprint Car event held at Paragon since four years earlier in 2021.
On the fourth lap, the feature’s lone caution came out after Carson Garrett and Justin Grant tangled entering turn three. Garrett climbed over Grant’s left side tires and spun backwards to a stop atop the high side of the surface. Garrett returned to the field at the tail but managed only a 17th place finish.
To start the evening, Garrett set a new one-lap track USAC National Sprint Car track record at Paragon with a time of 14.309 seconds in Honest Abe Roofing Qualifying. That broke the 29-year-old track record of 14.886 held by Mark Cassella that had stood since 1996.
When the race resumed, Moles began to gain ground. He worked and worked on Hunter Maddox before swiping the second position with an outside turn four pass on lap nine while his rear brake rotor glowed red hot, and on occasion, set off a spectacular shower of sparks.
By then, Seavey had constructed a 1.3 second lead over the field, but that changed quite quickly as he closed in on the tail end of the lead lap cars. That allowed Moles to reel his way into contention to where he was squarely on Seavey’s rear bumper just before the midway point. But as Seavey drifted toward the middle of turn three on the 14th circuit, Moles took heed and slipped under Seavey at the exit of turn four, slid up and burst away into the night.
Almost instantaneously, Cummins appeared in the frame and was there to pounce on lap 18 as he flashed under Seavey on the back straightaway to take over second where he remained eight tenths of a second behind Moles for the lead.
With five laps remaining, Moles’ advantage was a mere two car lengths over Cummins, and it quickly became a duel between two drivers who were exhausted of finishing as the runner-up. Whereas Moles has accumulated five second place finishes overall with the series in 2025, Cummins had recorded six second place results in his nine most recent starts, 10 in totality to date!
On the final lap, Moles initially appeared to have gained some breathing room as he cleared the lapped car of Brandon Mattox and possessed about a seven car length advantage over Cummins heading into turns one and two for the final time.
That lead quickly dissipated by the time the two entered turn three. Moles had closed in right to the tail tank of 14th running Ricky Lewis. Lewis remained on the high side on the same line Moles chose just behind him. Cummins promptly dove to the lower lane and the two were now practically even at the exit of turn four. Moles had nowhere else to go, and was tucked in a couple feet behind Lewis, carrying enough speed to edge Cummins to the line by a margin about the size of a front bumper.
“Every time I feel like I get down and I try to protect and try to take their line away, it doesn’t work out for me, so I just stuck with what I knew,” Moles revealed after his long-awaited triumph. “Honestly, the lapped cars were the hardest thing for me. I didn’t really know where to go there at the line. Kyle was right to the inside of me and I just started pushing Ricky across the line because I didn’t know what else to do.”
Behind Moles was Cummins who, astoundingly, finished second for the seventh time in his last 10 USAC National Sprint Car feature starts, and the 11th time overall this season. Seavey took third after leading the initial 14 laps. Seavey had also led the first seven laps before finishing second in the most recent USAC Sprint Car race at Paragon in 2021. Grant tallied a fourth place finish while Jake Swanson came home fifth for the third consecutive series race over the past nine nights.
C.J. Leary was buried deep in the feature field, but after starting 17th, he dug his way forward 10 positions to land a solid seventh place result to earn Rod End Supply Hard Charger honors.
Braxton Cummings experienced a little bit of it all throughout the night. Mechanical issues prevented him from qualifying at the start of the program, but in the semi-feature, his sensational last lap, last turn pass netted him the win and a spot in the feature where he advanced his way up from 24th to 16th. All of that earned him the Inferno Armor Fire Move of the Night.
In the track record department, Kevin Thomas Jr. broke a 41-year-old mark during his heat race victory. His eight-lap heat race time of 1:57.475 shattered the USAC National Sprint Car record of 2:06.560 for the distance at Paragon, held by three-time USAC National Sprint Car champion Sheldon Kinser since 1984.
The USAC AMSOIL National Sprint Car Series heads north Friday to Butler Motor Speedway in Quincy, Michigan.
USAC AMSOIL SPRINT CAR NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP RACE RESULTS: September 26, 2025 – Paragon Speedway – Paragon, Indiana – 3/8-Mile Dirt Track – Fall Brawl
HONEST ABE ROOFING QUALIFYING: 1. Carson Garrett, 2E, Epperson-14.309 (New Track Record); 2. Kyle Cummins, 3p, Petty-14.314; 3. Mitchel Moles, 19AZ, Reinbold/Underwood-14.344; 4. Jake Swanson, 5T, Daming Swanson-14.350; 5. Logan Seavey, 57, Abacus-14.398; 6. Hunter Maddox, 24m, Maddox-14.443; 7. Chase Stockon, 92, Sertich-14.453; 8. Briggs Danner, 39, Hogue-14.482; 9. Kevin Thomas Jr., 3R, Rock Steady-14.519; 10. Ricky Lewis, 2B, 2B Racing-14.533; 11. Hayden Reinbold, 19, Reinbold/Underwood-14.543; 12. Justin Grant, 4, TOPP-14.555; 13. Jordan Kinser, 75, Tate-14.562; 14. Anthony Nicholson, 16, Nicholson-14.572; 15. Todd Hobson, 77, Wingo-14.586; 16. Trey Osborne, 6T, Osborne-14.678; 17. C.J. Leary, 21AZ, Team AZ/Curb-Agajanian-14.710; 18. Gunnar Setser, 5G, KO-14.712; 19. Chance Crum, 83c, Crum-14.758; 20. Gabriel Gilbert, 10G, GGR-14.863; 21. Brandon Mattox, 28, Mattox-14.947; 22. Matt Westfall, 54, Westfall-14.962; 23. Austin Cory, 00, Cory-15.089; 24. Michael Clark, 8, Clark-15.211; 25. Sam Hinds, 71H, Hinds-15.386; 26. Travis Thompson, 7, Thompson-15.413; 27. Rob Caho Jr., 78, Caho-15.452; 28. Braxton Cummings, 71B, Cummings-NT.
CAR IQ FIRST HEAT: (8 laps, top-5 transfer to the feature) 1. Kevin Thomas Jr., 2. C.J. Leary, 3. Brandon Mattox, 4. Carson Garrett, 5. Logan Seavey, 6. Jordan Kinser, 7. Travis Thompson. 1:57.475 (New Track Record)
K1 RACEGEAR SECOND HEAT: (8 laps, top-5 transfer to the feature) 1. Gunnar Setser, 2. Ricky Lewis, 3. Kyle Cummins, 4. Hunter Maddox, 5. Matt Westfall, 6. Rob Caho Jr., 7. Anthony Nicholson. NT
USAC GEAR THIRD HEAT: (8 laps, top-5 transfer to the feature) 1. Chance Crum, 2. Mitchel Moles, 3. Hayden Reinbold, 4. Chase Stockon, 5. Todd Hobson, 6. Braxton Cummings, 7. Austin Cory. 2:00.872
COOKOUT FOURTH HEAT: (8 laps, top-5 transfer to the feature) 1. Justin Grant, 2. Jake Swanson, 3. Trey Osborne, 4. Gabriel Gilbert, 5. Briggs Danner, 6. Sam Hinds, 7. Michael Clark. 2:00.621
ELLIOTT’S CUSTOM TRAILERS & CARTS SEMI: (8 laps, top-4 transfer to the feature) 1. Braxton Cummings, 2. Sam Hinds, 3. Rob Caho Jr., 4. Travis Thompson, 5. Michael Clark, 6. Jordan Kinser, 7. Austin Cory. NT
FEATURE: (30 laps, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Mitchel Moles (4), 2. Kyle Cummins (5), 3. Logan Seavey (2), 4. Justin Grant (8), 5. Jake Swanson (3), 6. Kevin Thomas Jr. (7), 7. C.J. Leary (17), 8. Gunnar Setser (9), 9. Hayden Reinbold (14), 10. Chase Stockon (11), 11. Briggs Danner (12), 12. Trey Osborne (16), 13. Chance Crum (10), 14. Ricky Lewis (13), 15. Hunter Maddox (1), 16. Braxton Cummings (24), 17. Carson Garrett (6), 18. Matt Westfall (20), 19. Sam Hinds (21), 20. Todd Hobson (15), 21. Rob Caho Jr. (23), 22. Brandon Mattox (19), 23. Gabriel Gilbert (18), 24. Travis Thompson (22). NT
FEATURE LAP LEADERS: Laps 1-13 Logan Seavey, Laps 14-30 Mitchel Moles.
**Jordan Kinser flipped during the semi.
USAC AMSOIL SPRINT CAR NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS: 1-Kyle Cummins-2793, 2-Mitchel Moles-2503, 3-Logan Seavey-2457, 4-Kevin Thomas Jr.-2386, 5-Justin Grant-2337, 6-Briggs Danner-2285, 7-C.J. Leary-2172, 8-Jake Swanson-2156, 9-Chase Stockon-1814, 10-Kale Drake-1811.
USAC PARALLAX GROUP NATIONAL PASSING MASTER POINTS: 1-Kale Drake-213, 2-Briggs Danner-144, 3-Gunnar Setser-139, 4-Kevin Thomas Jr.-129, 5-C.J. Leary-127, 6-Logan Seavey-117, 7-Justin Grant-116, 8-Chase Stockon-108, 9-Kyle Cummins-105, 10-Hayden Reinbold-99.
NEXT USAC AMSOIL SPRINT CAR NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP RACE: September 27, 2025 – Butler Motor Speedway – Quincy, Michigan – 3/8-Mile Dirt Track
CONTINGENCY AWARD WINNERS:
Dirt Draft Hot Laps Fastest Driver: Kevin Thomas Jr. (14.333)
Honest Abe Roofing Fast Qualifier: Carson Garrett (14.309)
Car IQ First Heat Winner: Kevin Thomas Jr.
K1 RaceGear Second Heat Winner: Gunnar Setser
USAC Gear Third Heat Winner: Chance Crum
Cookout Fourth Heat Winner: Justin Grant
Elliott’s Custom Trailers & Carts Semi Winner: Braxton Cummings
Rod End Supply Hard Charger: C.J. Leary (17th to 7th)
Inferno Armor Fire Move of the Night: Braxton Cummings