By Richie Murray
Lawrenceburg, Indiana (April 11, 2026)………Briggs Danner rode the rim of Indiana’s Lawrenceburg Speedway to perfection during Saturday night’s third annual Justin Owen Memorial Presented by Tempstar.
The Allentown, Pennsylvania native raced from his fifth place starting spot and into the lead just before the midway point of the 30-lap feature, then fended off Kyle Cummins on multiple restarts down the stretch to capture his first USAC AMSOIL Sprint Car National Championship win of the 2026 season.
Danner’s second USAC National Sprint Car triumph at Lawrenceburg’s 3/8-mile dirt oval was the eighth overall of his career, tying him with Mike Bliss, Chet Fillip, Johnny Rutherford, Joe Saldana and Jake Swanson for 62nd place on the all-time list.
The race was held in memory of Justin Owen, the 2022 sprint car track champion at Lawrenceburg who lost his life in a racing accident at the track in 2023. For Danner, it was certainly special to add his name alongside Kevin Thomas Jr. (2024) and Justin Grant (2025) as winners of the event.
“I feel like this is what it’s all about – for Justin,” Danner stated. “This is a really cool deal to be able to come out and be a part of it.”
Danner had an inkling the track was going to be to his liking. For him, it was just a matter of the high line giving him what he needed after being a bit thinner early on. In the end, Danner had his Hogue Racing Enterprises/E. Schneider & Sons – Keystone Cap/DRC/Rider Chevy dialed in.
“What a car this was to drive tonight,” Danner exclaimed. “It was making my job very easy, for sure. This was a helluva night and if we can keep them going this way, we’ll be okay.”
In a span of about a half lap on the third circuit of the feature, Danner picked off two off the top of turn four, eking around the outside of Jake Swanson for fourth, then nipping Mitchel Moles at the stripe in the blink of an eye later for third. Danner kept on pedaling near the outside wall, and blitzed his way by Justin Grant for second off the turn two top rope.
Cummins, meanwhile, had led from the outset. But soon, he reached the tail end of the field and Danner snipped the interval rather quickly, matching each and every one of Cummins’ needle-threading maneuvers along the way on the high banks.
By lap 13, Danner was right on Cummins’ rear bumper. Changing course, however, when Danner saw daylight on the bottom of turn three under Cummins, he left the top and went on the attack down low. Danner dove to the bottom of the track, then slid up in front of Cummins as he rose up the turn four banking, clearing the way to take over up front with authority.
After Austin Nigh (19th) spun to a stop in between turns three and four on the 19th lap, Danner’s 2.320 second lead over Cummins was erased. Cummins, with a new lease on his feature life, took instant capitalization of his reprieve to make a bid for the lead on the lap 19 restart. As Cummins drifted ahead of Danner in turn one, Danner quickly flicked the steering wheel and charged back under Cummins to re-secure the one spot.
But just when Danner thought he was back in the clear, Trey Osborne (11th) spun on the infield berm in turns three and four, which collected Cannon McIntosh (12th), grinding both to a halt. For McIntosh, the 2025 USAC NOS Energy Drink Midget National Champion, it was his first USAC National Sprint Car start in nearly five years. Earlier in the night, McIntosh captured a heat race win in his first run for KO Motorsports.
In turn, it set up another restart for Danner to go face-to-face with, and with Cummins hot on his trail.
“That was probably the longest 20 laps of my life, just waiting for the checker to fall,” Danner admitted. “I didn’t want to see those restarts come because I felt like I was in a rhythm and doing a good job on my part. To fend off Kyle on restarts is tough. He’ll be aggressive and he’s very calculating. He knows what he’s doing.”
This time, however, Cummins didn’t have a move on Danner in turn one. Danner was simply in another zip code as he muscled away once more, and “Danner” was all she wrote.
Danner defeated Cummins to the finish line by a 1.382 second margin with Justin Grant rounding out the podium in third. Robert Ballou made a late rally on the bottom to finish fourth while C.J. Leary rounded out the top-five.
Earning the $100 K & N Filters Clean Air award was Danner who led a race-high 18 laps en route to victory. Danner also added $400 to the bank for qualifying second quickest. The extra cash was one of the many rewards issued throughout the evening as part of the Justin Owen Memorial.
C.J. Leary lined his wallet with $150 for grabbing LearnLab Fast Qualifying honors, which provided the famed Fox No. 53 its first fast time award at Lawrenceburg since 2010 with Jon Stanbrough behind the wheel. For Leary, it was the 58th fast time of his USAC National Sprint Car career, just two behind Tracy Hines for third place all-time. Leary also bagged an extra $400 for laying down the second fastest time during hot laps.
USAC National Sprint Car Rookie David Gasper had a quite lucrative Lawrenceburg debut. The young Californian’s 23rd to 14th run in the feature netted him the Hard Charger award for the night. He collected $1,000 in Justin Owen Memorial cash for his efforts, plus $150 more from Rod End Supply.
Ryan Barr came up one spot short of the feature, but still came home with some extra money as the first non-transfer of the semi-feature. He was the recipient of the $264 Justin Owen Memorial bonus, plus the standard $200 USAC non-transfer money.
Four drivers earned bonuses by finishing fourth in their respective heat races in honor of Justin Owen’s car number #4J. They were C.J. Leary, Logan Calderwood, Jadon Rogers and Cale Coons.
USAC AMSOIL SPRINT CAR NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP RACE RESULTS: April 11, 2026 – Lawrenceburg Speedway – Lawrenceburg, Indiana – 3rd Annual Justin Owen Memorial Presented by Tempstar – 3/8-Mile Dirt Track
LEARNLAB QUALIFYING: 1. C.J. Leary, 53, Fox-14.210; 2. Briggs Danner, 39, Hogue-14.223; 3. Justin Grant, 4, TOPP-14.313; 4. Mitchel Moles, 19AZ, Reinbold/Underwood-14.420; 5. Kyle Cummins, 3p, Petty-14.434; 6. Jake Swanson, 5T, Daming Swanson-14.514; 7. Logan Seavey, 57, Abacus-14.514; 8. Cale Coons, 63, Dooling/Curb-Agajanian-14.531; 9. Robert Ballou, 12, Ballou-14.537; 10. Austin Nigh, 97, Nigh-14.616; 11. Jadon Rogers, 14, Rogers-14.634; 12. Shawn Westerfeld, 4J, Fischesser/Owen-14.674; 13. Kevin Thomas Jr., 3R, Rock Steady-14.742; 14. Nate Carle, 14c, Carle-14.757; 15. Cannon McIntosh, 5G, KO-14.760; 16. Ricky Lewis, 41, Lewis-14.771; 17. Chase Stockon, 92, Sertich-14.812; 18. Trey Osborne, 6T, Osborne-14.967; 19. Kyle Shipley, 0G, Black Gold-15.024; 20. Zack Pretorius, 9z, Pretorius-15.063; 21. Chelby Hinton, 2B, 2B Racing-15.090; 22. Logan Calderwood, 6, Calderwood-15.129; 23. Hayden Reinbold, 19, Reinbold/Underwood-15.162; 24. Ryan Barr, 21B, Barr-15.216; 25. Braxton Cummings, 71B, Cummings-15.260; 26. David Gasper, 77s, Sturgeon-15.521; 27. Dustin Webber, 9, Webber-15.802; 28. Zach Lamb, 73, Lamb-16.216; 29. Evan Mosley, 2, Barkdull-16.331; 30. Aric Gentry, 10, Gentry-16.646; 31. Colin Parker, 16K, Knight-NT.
K1 RACEGEAR FIRST HEAT: (8 laps, top-5 transfer to the feature, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Chase Stockon (2), 2. Robert Ballou (4), 3. Kevin Thomas Jr. (3), 4. C.J. Leary (6), 5. Kyle Cummins (5), 6. Chelby Hinton (1), 7. Braxton Cummings (7), 8. Evan Mosley (8). NT
TJ FORGED SECOND HEAT: (8 laps, top-5 transfer to the feature, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Briggs Danner (6), 2. Trey Osborne (2), 3. Jake Swanson (5), 4. Logan Calderwood (1), 5. David Gasper (7), 6. Aric Gentry (8), 7. Nate Carle (3), 8. Austin Nigh (4). NT
K & N FILTERS THIRD HEAT: (8 laps, top-5 transfer to the feature, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Cannon McIntosh (3), 2. Hayden Reinbold (1), 3. Justin Grant (6), 4. Jadon Rogers (4), 5. Logan Seavey (5), 6. Kyle Shipley (2), 7. Dustin Webber (7). NT
INDY POWERSPORTS FOURTH HEAT: (8 laps, top-5 transfer to the feature, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Mitchel Moles (6), 2. Ricky Lewis (3), 3. Zack Pretorius (2), 4. Cale Coons (5), 5. Shawn Westerfeld (4), 6. Ryan Barr (1). NT
FIVE STAR RACE CAR BODIES SEMI: (10 laps, top-4 transfer to the feature, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Aric Gentry (6), 2. Nate Carle (2), 3. Austin Nigh (1), 4. Braxton Cummings (7), 5. Ryan Barr (5), 6. Evan Mosley (9), 7. Kyle Shipley (3), 8. Chelby Hinton (4), 9. Dustin Webber. NT
FEATURE: (30 laps, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Briggs Danner (5), 2. Kyle Cummins (2), 3. Justin Grant (4), 4. Robert Ballou (11), 5. C.J. Leary (6), 6. Jake Swanson (1), 7. Mitchel Moles (3), 8. Cale Coons (10), 9. Kevin Thomas Jr. (15), 10. Jadon Rogers (13), 11. Chase Stockon (8), 12. Trey Osborne (18), 13. Hayden Reinbold (21), 14. David Gasper (23), 15. Logan Seavey (9), 16. Zack Pretorius (19), 17. Ricky Lewis (17), 18. Logan Calderwood (20), 19. Chelby Hinton (25-P), 20. Shawn Westerfeld (14), 21. Nate Carle (16), 22. Austin Nigh (12), 23. Cannon McIntosh (7), 24. Braxton Cummings (22), 25. Aric Gentry (24). NT
(P) represents a provisional starter.
FEATURE LAP LEADERS: Laps 1-12 Kyle Cummins, Laps 13-30 Briggs Danner.
**Kyle Shipley flipped during the semi.
USAC AMSOIL SPRINT CAR NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS: 1-Kyle Cummins-527, 2-Justin Grant-511, 3-Jake Swanson-501, 4-Logan Seavey-496, 5-Mitchel Moles-486, 6-Chase Stockon-469, 7-Briggs Danner-469, 8-Kevin Thomas Jr.-453, 9-C.J. Leary-406, 10-Brady Bacon-402.
USAC PARALLAX GROUP NATIONAL PASSING MASTER POINTS: 1-Logan Calderwood-31, 2-Cale Coons-26, 3-Robert Ballou-23, 4-Kevin Thomas Jr.-22, 5-Briggs Danner-20, 6-Chase Stockon-18, 7-Brady Bacon-18, 8-Chelby Hinton-17, 9-Hayden Reinbold-17, 10-Justin Grant-15.
NEXT USAC AMSOIL SPRINT CAR NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP RACE: April 12, 2026 – Terre Haute Action Track – Terre Haute, Indiana – 23rd Jim Hurtubise Classic – 1/2-Mile Dirt Track
CONTINGENCY AWARD WINNERS:
Dirt Draft Hot Laps Fastest Driver: Justin Grant (14.317)
Second Fastest in Hot Laps: C.J. Leary (14.425)
LearnLab Fast Qualifier: C.J. Leary (14.210)
Second Fastest Qualifier: Briggs Danner (14.223)
K1 RaceGear First Heat Winner: Chase Stockon
TJ Forged Second Heat Winner: Briggs Danner
K & N Filters Third Heat Winner: Cannon McIntosh
USAC Gear Fourth Heat Winner: Mitchel Moles
4th Place Heat Race Finishers: C.J. Leary, Logan Calderwood, Jadon Rogers & Cale Coons
Five Star Bodies Semi Winner: Aric Gentry
First Semi Non-Transfer: Ryan Barr
K & N Filters Clean Air Award: Briggs Danner (18 laps led)
Rod End Supply / Justin Owen Memorial Hard Charger: David Gasper (23rd to 14th)