DANNER DELIVERS AT TRI-CITY

Briggs Danner captured victory with the United States Auto Club (USAC ) AMSOIL Sprintcar National Championship on Friday night (September 5) at Tri-City Speedway in Granite City, Illinois. (Rich Forman Photo)

By: Richie Murray – USAC Media

Granite City, Illinois (September 5, 2025)………Briggs Danner and Hogue Racing Enterprises were counting down the days until they could get their chance at redemption on Friday night at Tri-City Speedway in Granite City, Illinois.

Just 13 days earlier, the Allentown, Pennsylvania driver’s wall contact and subsequent flip on the final lap of Sprintcar Smackdown XIV at Indiana’s Kokomo Speedway resulted in heartbreak that weighed heavily on their minds until they got a crack at their next opportunity.

When opportunity knocked, Danner answered at Tri-City. Starting fourth in the 30-lap feature, Danner tracked down Kyle Cummins for the lead on the 14th circuit, then ran away from the pack to earn his third USAC AMSOIL Sprintcar National Championship victory of the season in his E. Schneider & Sons – Aw Shucks Roasted Corn/DRC/Rider Chevy.

“I’ve got to thank Tim (Hogue) and Tyler; this one’s for them,” Danner said. “They put a lot of work in after Kokomo, and we’ve just tried to forget about it and move on. Tonight made that a little easier.”

In what was the first visit by the USAC Sprintcars to Tri-City’s 3/8-mile dirt oval since 2019, for both Danner and Hogue, it was the first time they’d ever laid eyes on the joint.

“It’s awesome,” Danner exclaimed. “It’s a place we’ve never been to and it’s really cool traveling to these new places and running well. I knew right from qualifying it was going to be pretty sweet. I wasn’t quite sure what the track was going to do there during the feature after a little bit of track work. I felt like it started to clean off in some spots but it was so dirty, it was hard to hit. So I kept running where I felt good.”

Danner’s sixth career USAC National Sprintcar triumph moved him into 76th place all-time alongside the likes of Emerson Axsom, Chad Boespflug, Kevin Briscoe, Shane Cottle, Jac Haudenschild, Jason McCord, Jan Opperman, Tom Sneva, George Snider, Jake Swanson and Dick Tobias.

Initially, it was front row counterparts Chase Stockon and Kyle Cummins who shared the lead for the first half of the event. Stockon paced the field for the first three laps before Cummins slid up across Stockon’s nose in turns one and two on the fourth lap to move to the top of the pylon. Danner followed suit moments later and ripped around the outside of Stockon to grab second.

On the 12th lap, the front three of Cummins, Danner and Stockon all found themselves in the thick of lapped traffic. Fourth running Justin Grant had just entered the fray in turn three when, suddenly, 20th running Dakota Earls spun directly in front of him, backed into the outside wall and performed a cartwheel before landing back on his wheels. Earls was okay. Grant, meanwhile, narrowly escaped contact and continued onward.

With traffic cleared out of the equation, the leaders were free to roam and duke it out themselves. Cummins successfully thwarted off Danner for the first two laps following the restart. That said, once Danner got wound up, he was ready to pounce. Utilizing a big run down the back straight, Danner slid Cummins for the top spot on the entry into turn three. Cummins attempted to retaliate a half lap later in turn one, but didn’t have enough oomph to clear Danner, and instead, fell into line as Danner raced away in the nighttime horizon.

Danner almost instantaneously pushed his lead to a full two seconds over Cummins. That said, traffic became sort of a nightmare down the stretch with cars racing three-wide and sliding each other on both ends of the racetrack. All the while, Danner was just trying to solve the jigsaw without getting caught up in any of it.

“It was tough,” Danner admitted. “I didn’t feel like I could enter good while following somebody. The bottom was just so slow to try to slide somebody unless you got a run, so I lost a lot of ground trying to slide guys and not clearing them. Then I got a stretch of six or seven lapped cars in a row. You don’t want to wreck yourself and you don’t want to wreck other guys, but you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do to stay out front. Guys like Kyle, Chase and Justin, they’re definitely coming.”

Despite that trio making a beeline for the front, they still didn’t have quite enough to reach Danner, although they made it somewhat close. In the end, Danner crossed the line 0.562 seconds ahead of Kyle Cummins who finished as the runner-up for the fourth consecutive race. Chase Stockon solidly finished third while Justin Grant had another fine showing despite his broken left foot to score fourth while Mario Clouser rounded out the top-five.

In fact, in Clouser’s first 59 career USAC National Sprintcar starts, he had never once cracked the top-five. This time around, he changed all that by tallying a fifth place result in what was his first USAC Sprint Car start of the year. That earned the Auburn, Illinois racer the Inferno Armor Fire Move of the Night.

Cale Coons continues to impress. In making just his seventh career USAC National Sprintcar appearance, he started 14th in the feature and raced his way up eight spots to a sixth place result and Rod End Supply Hard Charger honors. Overall, it’s already his third series finish inside the top-six this season.

Justin Grant sure got off on the right foot at Tri-City. He delivered a new one-lap USAC National Sprintcar track record, setting the new standard of 14.002 seconds in Honest Abe Roofing Qualifying. That shattered the former mark of 14.316, set by Kevin Thomas Jr. in 2019. For Grant, it was his fifth fast qualifying time this season and the 39th of his USAC National Sprint Car career, moving him ahead of five-time series champion Levi Jones and into sole possession of seventh place on the all-time list.

USAC AMSOIL SPRINTCAR NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP RACE RESULTS: September 5, 2025 – Tri-City Speedway – Granite City, Illinois – 3/8-Mile Dirt Track

HONEST ABE ROOFING QUALIFYING: 1. Justin Grant, 4, TOPP-14.002; 2. Logan Seavey, 57, Abacus-14.007; 3. Briggs Danner, 39, Hogue-14.202; 4. Mario Clouser, 6, Clouser-14.206; 5. Kyle Cummins, 3p, Petty-14.216; 6. Chase Stockon, 92, Sertich-14.251; 7. Kale Drake, 2B, 2B Racing-14.374; 8. Mitchel Moles, 19AZ, Reinbold/Underwood-14.400; 9. Jadon Rogers, 5, Baldwin/Fox-14.401; 10. Kevin Thomas Jr., 3R, Rock Steady-14.430; 11. Jake Swanson, 5T, Daming Swanson-14.442; 12. Cale Coons, 63, Dooling/Curb-Agajanian-14.500; 13. C.J. Leary, 21AZ, Team AZ/Curb-Agajanian-14.529; 14. Gunnar Setser, 5G, KO-14.669; 15. Ricky Lewis, 41, Lewis-14.820; 16. Wesley Smith, 44, Smith-14.821; 17. Kobe Simpson, 21K, Simpson-14.859; 18. Hayden Reinbold, 19, Reinbold/Underwood-14.950; 19. Brandon Mattox, 28, Mattox-14.983; 20. Anthony Nicholson, 16, Nicholson-15.207; 21. Braydon Cromwell, 4x, Cromwell-15.218; 22. Dakota Earls, 15E, Earls-15.668.

CAR IQ FIRST HEAT: (8 laps, all transfer to the feature) 1. Wesley Smith, 2. Kale Drake, 3. C.J. Leary, 4. Kevin Thomas Jr., 5. Justin Grant, 6. Mario Clouser, 7. Brandon Mattox, 8. Dakota Earls. 2:01.013

K1 RACEGEAR SECOND HEAT: (8 laps, all transfer to the feature) 1. Mitchel Moles, 2. Gunnar Setser, 3. Jake Swanson, 4. Logan Seavey, 5. Kyle Cummins, 6. Kobe Simpson, 7. Anthony Nicholson. 2:06.965

USAC GEAR THIRD HEAT: (8 laps, all transfer to the feature) 1. Ricky Lewis, 2. Cale Coons, 3. Briggs Danner, 4. Jadon Rogers, 5. Chase Stockon, 6. Hayden Reinbold, 7. Braydon Cromwell. 2:03.996

FEATURE: (30 laps, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Briggs Danner (4), 2. Kyle Cummins (2), 3. Chase Stockon (1), 4. Justin Grant (6), 5. Mario Clouser (3), 6. Cale Coons (14), 7. Logan Seavey (5), 8. Mitchel Moles (7), 9. Kevin Thomas Jr. (12), 10. Jake Swanson (13), 11. Gunnar Setser (16), 12. Kale Drake (10), 13. C.J. Leary (15), 14. Jadon Rogers (11), 15. Brandon Mattox (19), 16. Hayden Reinbold (18), 17. Kobe Simpson (17), 18. Braydon Cromwell (21), 19. Wesley Smith (9), 20. Anthony Nicholson (20), 21. Dakota Earls (22), 22. Ricky Lewis (8). NT

FEATURE LAP LEADERS: Laps 1-3 Chase Stockon, Laps 4-13 Kyle Cummins, Laps 14-30 Briggs Danner.

USAC AMSOIL SPRINTCAR NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS: 1-Kyle Cummins-2390, 2-Mitchel Moles-2116, 3-Logan Seavey-2103, 4-Kevin Thomas Jr.-2004, 5-Briggs Danner-1979, 6-Justin Grant-1972, 7-C.J. Leary-1855, 8-Jake Swanson-1820, 9-Kale Drake-1699, 10-Robert Ballou-1693.

USAC PARALLAX GROUP NATIONAL PASSING MASTER POINTS: 1-Kale Drake-208, 2-Briggs Danner-132, 3-Gunnar Setser-127, 4-Kevin Thomas Jr.-121, 5-Logan Seavey-105, 6-C.J. Leary-104, 7-Justin Grant-102, 8-Kyle Cummins-94, 9-Chase Stockon-85, 10-Hayden Reinbold-83.

NEXT USAC AMSOIL SPRINT CAR NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP RACE: September 6, 2025 – Lucas Oil Speedway – Wheatland, Missouri – 3/8-Mile Dirt Track – Rod End Supply Diamond Dirt Duel

CONTINGENCY AWARD WINNERS:

Dirt Draft Hot Laps Fastest Driver: Justin Grant (14.205)

Honest Abe Roofing Fast Qualifier: Justin Grant (14.002)

Car IQ First Heat Winner: Wesley Smith

K1 RaceGear Second Heat Winner: Mitchel Moles

USAC Gear Third Heat Winner: Ricky Lewis

Rod End Supply Hard Charger: Cale Coons (14th to 6th)

Inferno Armor Fire Move of the Night: Mario Clouser