CURTAIN CALL! DANNER ACES TOLEDO’S USAC SILVER CROWN SEASON FINALE

Briggs Danner captured the Hemelgarn Racing / Super Fitness Rollie Beale Classic victory in Saturday’s United States Auto Club (USAC) Silver Crown season finale at Ohio’s Toledo Speedway. (Rich Forman Photo)

By: Richie Murray – USAC Media

Toledo, Ohio (October 3, 2026)………For Briggs Danner and Ohio’s Toledo Speedway, it was love at first sight.

The first time Danner laid eyes on the 1/2-mile paved oval this weekend, he simply decided to go out and win the thing during Saturday’s Hemelgarn Racing / Super Fitness Rollie Beale Classic 100-lap United States Auto Club (USAC) Silver Crown championship season finale.

Just like clockwork, Danner did the very same thing by winning in his first ever trip to Indiana’s Winchester Speedway in July.

Starting third, the Allentown, Pennsylvania native worked his way to second past Mario Clouser on the 32nd lap, then found his way to the lead on the 46th go around when racelong leader Chase Cabre locked up his left front tire on entry into turn three.

From that point forward, Danner had to contend with a hard-charging and pesky Tyler Roahrig to capture his third USAC Silver Crown win of the season, and his second on the pavement at the controls of the Doran Racing-Mark Swanson Encore Team/E. Schneider & Sons – Fuel Mart – Sennebogen/Beast/Doran Toyota No. 77.

“I’ve just got to hand it to everybody on this team,” Danner praised. “These guys give me a really fast car and it makes my job easy, for sure. Our speed showed today. I know we probably would’ve liked to have been a little bit better at the end, and I know Tyler had a shot to do something. But to qualify as good as we did in our first time coming here and to be able to hold them off, it was great.”

Danner’s victory, coupled with a three-point bonus for leading the most laps in Saturday’s race, elevated him to second in the season-ending USAC Silver Crown point standings. Danner actually tied Grant at 557 points but held the tiebreaker over Grant based on most feature victories this year.

With the fourth win of his USAC Silver Crown career, Danner moved to 37th place on the all-time series win list alongside Kyle Larson, Daison Pursley, Jeff Swindell, and Rich Vogler. Furthermore, Danner became the first driver since Kody Swanson in 2018 to win the Toledo USAC Silver Crown race from a starting spot further back than the front row! Danner started Saturday’s race from inside row two.

For five of the past six years, the Doran Racing team has celebrated a USAC Silver Crown triumph at Toledo. The first four came with Swanson in 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, and now Danner has added his name to the list of Toledo dominators.

Cabre was comfortably up front for the majority of the first half of the race. However, all eyes were on eighth starting Tyler Roahrig who stepped up a lane and methodically picked his way to the front. He went topside around Dakoda Armstrong for sixth on lap 25, by C.J. Leary for fifth on lap 26, and by Justin Grant for fourth on the 28th lap.

At the same time, Danner was making his surge, as he charged by Mario Clouser for the runner-up spot on lap 32. Meanwhile, Roahrig’s fantastic run was still rolling along as the traveled the high line around Clouser moments later on the back straightaway on lap 33.

Danner made his first bid for the lead on lap 36 as he was able to pull along the inside of Cabre off turn four. However, that pathway was occupied for the time being as the lapped car of Robert Tyler already had the line. Danner instead swung high around Tyler entering turn one and fell back into line behind Cabre. But not for too long.

On the 46th lap, Cabre’s left front tire shot out a puff of smoke as he entered through the middle of turn three. That left the matador line open for Danner as he zipped on by Cabre on the low groove to take over the lead just five laps short of the halfway mark.

“I knew Chase was going to be pretty good and I was actually a little surprised to see how quickly he started to fall off and tighten up, I feel, as we all did,” Danner remarked.

Danner ran his lead out to two full seconds over the next few laps as Roahrig made a beeline to the second position around the outside of Cabre in turns three and four on the 54th lap. However, a yellow flag for the stopped car of first-time USAC Silver Crown starter Jared Kreider completely evaporated Danner’s advantage as the field bunched up for the restart. Thereafter, Roahrig wouldn’t leave Danner alone.

“I know Tyler was really good rolling the middle groove there and I wasn’t really quite sure if he was faster or if we were just checked up on the bottom and that’s why he could pick cars off,” Danner pondered. “(Car owner) Kevin (Doran) did a really good job on the radio of letting me know what was going on behind me, when I needed to push, and when I could settle down and save my stuff a little bit.”

On lap 72, Roahrig nearly lost the handle of his ride in turn two as he slipped sideways before catching it and continuing on, but his deficit plummeted from a little more than a car length to eight car lengths in the snap of a finger. That said, Roahrig quickly reeled Danner back in and was on his rear bumper with 15 laps to go as lapped traffic loomed. By the time just eight laps remained, traffic was disposed of while Roahrig was superglued to Danner’s rear bumper, and now it was a one-on-one to decide the race.

Despite the rigidness of a pavement surface in comparison to dirt, a pavement surface can be quite malleable and finicky based on weather conditions and the time of day, especially when one end of the track is in the shade and the opposite end lays in direct sunlight. Danner had to face the challenge of adapting to his car’s handling as the race wore on, affected by tire wear and the fuel load burning off.

“It was tough,” Danner acknowledged. “I felt like I could roll the bottom of three and four really good. I felt like that’s kind of where I felt the best, and as the race went on, the sun was getting lower and lower and it just made it hard to see the front stretch wall. So, I felt like that’s where I struggled the most. As I tried to time my exit off four and entry into one, I think that’s where Tyler was gaining the most on me at the end. I was just trying to keep all four tires underneath me and try to conserve what I could and push when I had to. It’s the name of the of the game for all these races. That’s why I love them so much.”

With four laps to go, you could barely slide a credit card between the back of Danner’s car and Roahrig’s nose at the exit of turn four. But moments later when Roahrig drifted wide off turns one and two on the 98th lap, Danner skated away free and easy to put the race on ice by a 0.478 second margin over Roahrig. Cabre crossed the line third with Grant fourth and Armstrong rounding out the top-five.

It was banner way for Danner to cap his first full season of USAC Silver Crown racing after enduring a rough patch at the beginning of the campaign with three straight DNFs across June and July.

“When we were able to finish races, it was really good,” Danner offered. “It was either running great or not finishing, but that’s part of it. Just trying to get everything figured out to be as consistent as we are is a great thing. If we have a little bit of luck on our side, I think we’re right there.”

By leading the most laps (55), Danner also added the K & N Filters Clean Air Award to his accolades for good measure.

Kale Drake, meanwhile, was making his first career USAC Silver Crown pavement start, and just the third asphalt start of his racing career following two recent All Star Pavement Midget outings. He worked his way up from his 16th starting position to corral a solid sixth place result. His +10 run earned him the Rod End Supply Hard Charger award.

Chase Cabre has now made two LearnLab Qualifying attempts in his brief USAC Silver Crown career. He scored the pole position in both of them. He got it done in August at Iowa Speedway, then got it done again on Saturday at Toledo after reeling off a lap of 15.159 seconds for an average lap speed of 118.741 miles per hour.

USAC SILVER CROWN CHAMPIONSHIP RACE RESULTS: October 3, 2026 – Toledo Speedway – Toledo, Ohio – 1/2-Mile Paved Oval – Hemelgarn Racing/Super Fitness Rollie Beale Classic

LEARNLAB QUALIFYING: 1. Chase Cabre, 26, Pierce-15.159; 2. Mario Clouser, 20, Team AZ/Petty/Rossi/Curb-Agajanian-15.256; 3. Briggs Danner, 77, Doran/Swanson-15.290; 4. Kyle Hamilton, 6, Klatt-15.314; 5. Justin Grant, 91, Hemelgarn-15.338; 6. Dakoda Armstrong, 5, C & A-15.372; 7. C.J. Leary, 21, Team AZ/Petty/Rossi/Curb-Agajanian-15.382; 8. Tyler Roahrig, 41, Newman-15.605; 9. Chase Locke, 14, Hamilton/DB-15.727; 10. Nathan Byrd, 40, Meyer/Byrd/Tosti-15.789; 11. Jared Kreider, 24, Haggenbottom-15.803; 12. Kale Drake, 92, Kazmark-15.872; 13. Chelby Hinton, 80, Breidinger-15.963; 14. Kaylee Bryson, 11, Abacus/Droplight-15.995; 15. Robert Tyler, 75, Tyler-16.410; 16. Gregg Cory, 32, Williams/Cory-16.473; 17. Dave Berkheimer, 31, Berkheimer-17.711; 18. Hayden Reinbold, 19, Reinbold/Underwood-19.554.

FEATURE: (100 laps, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Briggs Danner (3), 2. Tyler Roahrig (8), 3. Chase Cabre (1), 4. Justin Grant (5), 5. Dakoda Armstrong (6), 6. Kale Drake (16), 7. Mario Clouser (2), 8. C.J. Leary (7), 9. Nathan Byrd (10), 10. Chelby Hinton (12), 11. Kaylee Bryson (18), 12. Chase Locke (9), 13. Jared Kreider (11), 14. Robert Tyler (13), 15. Dave Berkheimer (15), 16. Gregg Cory (14), 17. Hayden Reinbold (17), 18. Kyle Hamilton (4). 32:22.998

FEATURE LAP LEADERS: Laps 1-45 Chase Cabre, Laps 46-100 Briggs Danner.

FINAL USAC SILVER CROWN CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS: 1-C.J. Leary-662, 2-Briggs Danner-557, 3-Justin Grant-557, 4-Mario Clouser-487, 5-Gregg Cory-388, 6-Dave Berkheimer-322, 7-Kaylee Bryson-283, 8-Chelby Hinton-279, 9-Dakoda Armstrong-275, 10-Hayden Reinbold-271.

USAC PARALLAX GROUP NATIONAL PASSING MASTER POINTS: 1-Hayden Reinbold-142, 2-Justin Grant-139, 3-Kevin Thomas Jr.-139, 4-Robert Ballou-124, 5-Chase Stockon-112, 6-Briggs Danner-110, 7-Cale Coons-108, 8-Jacob Denney-102, 9-Jake Swanson-95, 10-Logan Seavey-91.

CONTINGENCY AWARD WINNERS:

Dirt Draft Practice Fastest Driver: C.J. Leary (15.140)

LearnLab Fast Qualifier: Chase Cabre (15.159)

K & N Filters Clean Air Award: Briggs Danner (55 laps led)

Rod End Supply Hard Charger: Kale Drake (16th to 6th)