From start to finish, Grant dominates Springfield Mile for 2nd Bettenhausen win
When Shane Cottle had a blown engine while riding in second place, it forced a showdown between two past Tony Bettenhausen 100 winners.
However, Justin Grant proved he and his car were too tough for anyone to overcome on Saturday, even the three-time winner of the USAC Silver Crown race at the Illinois State Fairgrounds, Kody Swanson.
On the final restart, after 2022 race winner Shane Cockrum had mechanical problems — which included a brief flame on the driver’s side of the car, on lap 68 — Swanson couldn’t get the run on Grant he needed.
When Cottle or Swanson closed the gap on Grant, that made the wire-to-wire leader press harder.
“With the Silver Crown cars, we have spotters,” Grant said. “You run out to the lead and you don’t want to run away and burn your stuff up, so my spotter was doing a great job of keeping me in the loop, of how far back they were.
“We’d let them kind of come in, I’d let everything cool down and ride for a while. If they got close, we’d pick it back up. I felt the whole race, we still had more left in the tank. We had a really, really good race car and that allowed us to use our radios and manage our time well.”
Grant was also the fastest driver during the morning practice session and earned the No. 1 spot in qualifying. His best practice was lap turned in 29.548 seconds and he qualified in 31.641 seconds.
Swanson said Grant had the superior car on Saturday.
“I thought I’d try to pressure him at times, but the faster I went, the faster he went,” Swanson said. “That’s just how it goes, sometimes. The best car can be hard to beat. It doesn’t always win, but today, I think the best car did.”
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Grant picked up his first win on the Springfield Mile dirt track in 2017, ending Kody Swanson’s two-year reign. Swanson won in 2014 and 2015 before the race in 2016 was rained out. Swanson won his third Bettenhausen in 2021.
“Springfield’s historic,” Grant said. “To win the Bettenhausen 100, it means a lot. It adds your name to a list of really accomplished people and sometimes, your name seems a little funny next to.”
Swanson’s lead in the championship points battle was trimmed down to 21 points; he leads Grant 608-587 with five more races left. Third-place finisher Logan Seavey, also No. 3 in the USAC Silver Crown standings, sits 37 points from Grant but leads C.J. Grant by 51 points.
After the race, the track in front of the grandstand was more pock-marked than usual. Swanson said the recent rains to hit central Illinois may have had a factor in the surface quality.
“Tricky today,” Swanson said of the Springfield Mile. “The track has a lot of character to it, it was kind of coming apart in spots — and that makes it hard to get wide, sometimes and get passes done — but that’s part of it. It’s the same track for everybody, so you all try to figure it out.”
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On lap 15, Chase Stockton had a flat tire that brought out the yellow flag, which only did minimal damage to his car, despite shredding at high speeds. He had to pit for a tire change and was a lap down when he exited the infield. He charged through the field, made up the lap and finished 10th overall. He started the day 12th.
“I don’t know if we cut the tire; the tread all still looks pretty good,” Stockton said. “Getting a lap down kind sucks, but we got kind of lucky we (back on the lead lap), then had to pass all those guys all over again. I kind of made a couple of charges then, then got patient and fell in line, then made another charge.
“There’s a lot of attrition in these races, so you’ve got to run cautiously hard, as I like to call it.”
Daison Pursley started 28th and finished ninth to win the hard charger award.
Contact Ryan Mahan: 788-1546, ryan.mahan@sj-r.com, Twitter.com/RyanMahanSJR.
This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: USAC Silver Crown: Justin Grant wins Tony Bettenhausen 100 race
