Coming Up Clutch With A Crutch! Grant Gets Usac Silver Crown Title #2 In 2025

Column By: Richie Murray / USAC MEDIA – SPEEDWAY, IN – At one point in late July/early August, question marks surrounded Justin Grant’s availability to race again in 2025, let alone continue onward without missing a beat on the way to his second career USAC Silver Crown National Championship.

On July 27, Grant (Ione, California) suffered a broken left foot in a crash during a USAC AMSOIL National Sprint Car feature at Indiana’s Lawrenceburg Speedway.

At the time, Grant held the USAC Silver Crown point lead and had nearly a third of the series schedule remaining on the docket. With three screws installed in his foot, five broken metatarsals and torn ligaments, things seemed bleak as he lay in a hospital bed fitted with a hard cast, pondering his next move with encouragement from his wife, Ashley, daughter of National Sprint Car Hall of Famer Bubby Jones.

“I broke my foot pretty good there, and I thought it was going to be a bit of a major deal,” Grant recalled. “But my wife, immediately said (to the doctors), ‘hey, you guys have got to figure something out because he’s got to keep racing. I was thinking, “erm, my foot hurts pretty bad. I don’t know about that.’

It wasn’t too long before pondering turned into action.

“By the next morning, I was on the phone with (crew chief) Dennis (LaCava) and we were devising how to get me back in the car and how to make the brakes work,” Grant explained. “Emotionally, I felt so bad, but I didn’t have any extra bandwidth to worry about how I felt emotionally. It was all I could do to get to the racetrack, get into a racecar and run 100 laps.”

With only 13 days between the crash and the next Silver Crown race, LaCava went to work, constructing a piece metal that resembled a dolly at first inspection. The piece clamped around Grant’s cast and featured a plate on the bottom that could meet up to the pedal. The overarching goal was to alleviate the load off the front half of his foot, thus allowing him to use his ankle and shin to apply the brakes.

At first, the goals were fairly meager heading into the Silver Crown round at the .555-mile paved, high banked oval of Indiana’s Salem Speedway on August 9. Through the grapevine, it was suggested that Grant was merely going to show up, run a few laps around the bottom and collect his start points/money.

Yet, as the race wore on, Grant’s goals had evolved. In the end, if you had been living under a rock, then watched Grant at Salem, you’d have had no idea of the predicament he was in, outside of him using crutches to “walk” anywhere he needed to go.

“At the beginning, that was all I focused on,” Grant recalled. “’If I can start the race, it’s better than not going. If I can make it to halfway, that’s better than 25. If I can make it to 100, that’s better than 50. I went down there and ran second to Kody (Swanson), and said, ‘well, I guess this foot’s going to be all right. We’re going to stay in this thing.’”

Following Salem, Grant reeled off consecutive fourth place finishes on the dirt miles at the Illinois State Fairgrounds and the Du Quoin State Fairgrounds, followed by another fourth in the season finale at Ohio’s Eldora’s Speedway.

Coupled by the fact the team had zero DNFs in 2025, 13 top-tens in 13 starts, along with a strong first two-thirds of the season that saw nary a finish worse than seventh all season long, Grant also won back-to-back on the pavement and dirt at Ohio’s Toledo Speedway and Kansas’ Belleville High Banks in April and May, respectively.

Grant’s final tally in the standings was 56 points ahead of C.J. Leary and marked the second USAC Silver Crown driving title for himself, the entrant title for Ron Hemelgarn of Hemelgarn Racing, as well as fellow team members, spotter Brian Karraker, crewman Jason Reynolds and Nick Bohanon, owner of the engine on the dirt car. It was also another feather in the cap for crew chief Dennis LaCava, who quite literally, saved the day and the season for Grant.

“I owe a lot of thanks to Dennis LaCava,” Grant praised. “He prepares great racecars and we didn’t fall out of anything all year long. That’s huge with a short schedule like this. Not only did we not fall out, but we also had a fast racecar every weekend. He’s the one who manufactured everything to keep my foot going. Without his efforts, attention to detail and ingenuity, we wouldn’t be here.”

LaCava is a former midget racer himself, and during the 1990s and 2000s, was crucial to Hemelgarn Racing’s success with Buddy Lazier as the winner of the 1996 Indianapolis 500 and the 2000 Indy Racing League championship.

Elsewhere during the 2025 campaign, Logan Seavey picked up the season opening win in April at Indiana’s Terre Haute Action Track to become the first back-to-back winner of the Sumar Classic in what was the 300th Silver Crown event held on a dirt track.

Grant’s pair of wins came in successive fashion at Toledo and Belleville. His Toledo score came in his 100th career Silver Crown start. At Belleville, he toured the 50-lap, 25-mile distance in just 15 minutes, 36.45 seconds in what was the quickest Silver Crown race in the 55-year history of the series.

During May’s 68th running of the Hoosier Hundred at Indiana’s Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park, pavement specialist Tyler Roahrig broke through for his first career USAC victory. The triumph came more than a half century after his great uncle, Dave Roahrig, collected a USAC National Sprint Car win in 1973 at Cincinnati, Ohio’s Tri-County Speedway.

On a part-time schedule in 2025, Kody Swanson racked up a series-high four victories in just eight starts. He first won in June at Madison, Illinois’ World Wide Technology Raceway in a race that also featured two red flags for multiple power outages during the feature! In late June’s Rich Vogler Classic, Swanson became the first driver to win four-straight USAC features at Indiana’s Winchester Speedway since Ryan Newman in 1999.

In August, Swanson didn’t miss a beat as he won his sixth consecutive Silver Crown race at Indiana’s Salem Speedway, albeit after a five-year absence from the series schedule. On the Springfield Mile, Swanson became a four-time Bettenhausen 100 victor, winning on the dirt for the first time in four seasons.

At Port Royal in June, Daison Pursley went from wreckers to checkers after crashing into the guardrail after the first of his two qualifying laps. After repairs, he walloped the field in the feature to score his second straight champ car win at Port Royal. In September’s season finale at Ohio’s Eldora Speedway, Pursley finished off a perfect night in USAC competition, winning all three features he competed: USAC National Sprint Car, USAC National Midget and USAC Silver Crown.

Briggs Danner became a first time USAC Silver Crown winner in July in what was just his 10th start as he preserved his equipment, then persevered late to capture the Salt City 100 at Hutchinson, Kansas’ Salt City Speedway.

C.J. Leary got back into USAC Silver Crown victory lane, winning on the pavement of Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park in July for his first series win since 2022. Furthermore, it was the first win since his father, 1995 USAC Silver Crown Rookie of the Year Chuck Leary, passed away in March at the age of 59. This particular win was also the first for a DRC chassis on pavement since Wayne Reutimann Jr. at Milwaukee in 2006. On Labor Day weekend, Leary and his crew took a dip in the infield lake at the Du Quoin State Fairgrounds after he won his first ever race on dirt mile.

Leary finished a career best second in the final Silver Crown standings, his fourth consecutive year inside the top-four. Matt Westfall also performed likewise, finishing a career best third in the standings as did Kyle Steffens (4th), Mario Clouser (5th) and Dave Berkheimer (7th).

Jake Trainor was named USAC Silver Crown MPI Rookie of the Year and finished a best of fifth at IRP in May. That’s tied for the best finish by a Rookie during the 2025 season along with Jackson Macenko (5th at WWT Raceway) and Kip Hughes (5th at Salt City).

Kody Swanson led all drivers with 326 laps led and five pole positions, while Justin Grant paced all with 11 top-fives and 13 top-ten finishes. Four drivers started all 13 events, including Dave Berkheimer, Justin Grant, C.J. Leary and Matt Westfall. Brian Tyler had the biggest charge of the year, advancing 20 positions from 26th to 6th at the Illinois State Fairgrounds.