It’s time to go racing in 2026 with a large and talented contingent of USAC AMSOIL Sprint Car National Championship full-time competitors.

Among the group are past series champions Kyle Cummins (2025), Logan Seavey (2024), Justin Grant (2022 & 2023) and Robert Ballou (2015). Plus USAC National Sprint Car winners Kevin Thomas Jr., Chase Stockon, Mitchel Moles, Jake Swanson and Briggs Danner. Rising contenders Hayden Reinbold are in full-time lineup as are Rookie of the Year contenders Cale Coons and Chelby Hinton.

At least three more drivers are actively pursuing full-time efforts with the series but are not confirmed at press time. All three will race in Florida this month, including 2019 champion C.J. Leary, 2025 Rookie of the Year Gunnar Setser and USAC CRA Sprint Car points runner-up Ricky Lewis.

The field of 13 confirmed full-time drivers and teams is stacked and ready to hit the road for the 55-race tour which hits the road for the first time in 2026 with six February dates in Florida starting at Barberville’s Volusia Speedway Park on February 9-10 followed by Ocala Speedway on February 11-12-13-14.

Here’s a look at the confirmed championship contenders with the USAC National Sprint Cars in 2026!

KYLE CUMMINS | PETTY PERFORMANCE RACING #3p

Kyle Cummins has always been in the role of hunter in USAC AMSOIL Sprint Car National Championship competition. But after last season’s historically dominant performance, he’s now the hunted.

The Princeton, Indiana racer put together his first USAC National Sprint Car championship season in 2025, leading the points from start to finish to win the title by a record 386-point margin. His 38 top-fives and 44 top-tens with the series last year were both new single season records.

His 10 feature victories and record-breaking 13 runner-up finishes throughout 2025 resulted in 23 top-two finishes, also a new record. He kicked off last year with 22 consecutive top-ten finishes, also a new record, while providing Petty Performance Racing its first ever USAC entrant title.

A year ago, he scored the Winter Dirt Games title in February and wrapped up his first USAC championship with four races remaining.

He’s still hungry and he still wants more. Now, in his third year with PPR, Cummins is shooting for a repeat in 2026!

JAKE SWANSON | DAMING SWANSON MOTORSPORTS #5T

Jake Swanson hit paydirt with the USAC AMSOIL Sprint Car National Championship in 2025 in his first season as a car owner.

During the series debut at Texas’ Route 66 Motor Speedway last October, the Anaheim, California native provided Daming Swanson Motorsports its first ever USAC win. The moment was extra special for Swanson following the death of car owner Joe Daming in 2024 at age 47.

Swanson’s first USAC win as a team owner came two years after his most recent series win, elevating him to 8th in the final 2025 USAC National Sprint standings.

A seven-time winner in USAC National Sprint Car competition, a 2017 USAC West Coast Sprint Car champion and USAC’s 2021 National Most Improved Driver, Swanson is now dialed in for the new year.

After hitting his stride late in the going last season, Swanson plans to be back in the same No. 5T, but even better in the coming year as he looks to build upon the foundation set forth in the previous year.

KEVIN THOMAS JR. | ROCK STEADY RACING #3R

You know his name. You know his game. And now Kevin Thomas Jr. has his eye on the biggest prize during the 2026 USAC AMSOIL Sprint Car National Championship.

KTJ rallied to four series wins and a fourth place finish in the 2025 USAC National Sprint Car standings. His victories on the year included some of the biggest stages in racing, namely Knoxville Raceway, Williams Grove Speedway, Tri-State Speedway and Kokomo Speedway where he pocketed his fourth Sprint Car Smackdown Friday night win in a five year span.

His most defining highlight of the year arrived when he became a three-time USAC Indiana Sprint Week champion after previously checking off titles in 2017, 2021 and 2025.

He’s already off on the right foot in 2026 with an 18th to 2nd performance at the Chili Bowl. But now the focus turns to the heavy artillery of USAC Sprint Car racing where KTJ and Rock Steady Racing car owner Hank Byram enter year three with their mind on the title and a title on their mind.

JUSTIN GRANT | TOPP MOTORSPORTS #4

The combo of Justin Grant and TOPP Motorsports is not only a long running one. It’s downright historic. In fact, this pairing has won a record 57 USAC National Sprint Car races together since teaming up in 2018.

While it wasn’t a championship season in 2025 due to his four race absence with a broken hoof. Grant did manage to earn a season high 11 wins, including the 63rd of his career in Wheatland, Missouri, which to rise to the top of the series’ all-time win list.

One of only eight drivers to achieve 100 USAC victories, Grant garnered his first ever Eastern Storm championship and his record fifth Sprint Car Smackdown title belt at Kokomo year ago.

The 2022 and 2023 USAC National Sprint Car king now enters 2026 with a clean bill of health, a fully functioning left foot and a heavy right foot.

They’re the most enduring driver and team in the sport, and in their ninth year together, they’re eying the top once more in 2026.

BRIGGS DANNER | HOGUE RACING ENTERPRISES #39

He’s made his name on the east coast in recent years, but over the last year couple of seasons, Briggs Danner has truly established himself on the USAC national scene.

In 2025, he posted four wins on the USAC AMSOIL Sprint Car National Championship tour, twice at Kokomo, once more at Tri-City and once again at Eldora. And in all of them, he was spectacular.

A clean sweep of Kokomo’s Indiana Sprint Week round last summer was finished off with a daring last lap pass for the victory in what was among the most thrilling moments of the campaign.

The Pennsylvanian has truly found a home with the New Jersey-based Hogue Racing Enterprises, and together, they’ve risen up the rankings, taking sixth in series points a year ago.

USAC’s Most Improved National Driver of 2024 was even more improved in 2025. There hasn’t been a USAC National Sprint Car champ from the Keystone State since Tommy Hinnershitz in 1959! Now, the next step up the USAC National Sprint Car totem pole awaits for Briggs.

ROBERT BALLOU | BALLOU MOTORSPORTS #12

When the chips are down, Robert Ballou has always managed to bounce back and get back on track over the years in USAC AMSOIL Sprint Car National Championship competition.

The Mad Man met an abrupt end to a strong 2025 season at Bloomington when injuries to his T2, T3 and T5 vertebrae in a crash sidelined him for the remaining 18 races on the schedule.

But after five months of healing and waiting, the Rocklin, California racer is back in the saddle of his famed No. 12, a combination he’s won with on 34 occasions, making him the winningest independent in series history as a driver/owner.

In 2025, he ended a 14-plus month absence from the USAC National Sprint Car win column during Indiana Sprint Week at Lincoln Park and also displayed his prowess with 15 heat race wins, most in the series.

The 2015 USAC National Sprint Car champ is eager to bounce back, into victory lane, into the championship fight and into the seat of his sprint car home once again.

LOGAN SEAVEY | ABACUS RACING #57

Logan Seavey delivered another banner season in 2025 by winning nine USAC AMSOIL Sprint Car National Championship main events, including many of the most lucrative ones on the schedule.

He picked up 20,000 at Tri-State’s Haubstadt Hustler, pocketed another 30,000 at Lawrenceburg’s Fall Nationals, then finished off the calendar with 43,000 on the final night of the season during the Western World Championships at Central Arizona Raceway.

One of the most decorated racers in USAC history as a champion of all three USAC national divisions, Seavey now ranks 16th on the all-time list in terms of USAC National Sprint Car career victories.

The 2024 USAC National Sprint Car champ finished the 2025 season with a flourish, winning each of the final two events of the year, and three of the last five.

Seavey and Abacus Racing have proven to be a juggernaut right from the get-go as they’ve achieved 23 wins with the series in their first two years together. In 2026, their third year is here, and they’d like it to be a charm.

MITCHEL MOLES | REINBOLD-UNDERWOOD MOTORSPORTS #19AZ

Mitchel Moles is rising! In each of his four years on the USAC AMSOIL Sprint Car National Championship tour, Moles has increased his statistical output across the board in terms of overall consistency and his final standing in the series points.

A year ago, his 22 top-fives and 41 top-tens were personal bests and propelled him in his surge to a career best second place finish in series points.

And for good measure, he made it thrilling by prevailing in the closest USAC race of the entire season, a 21 hundredths of a second triumph over Kyle Cummins in last September’s Fall Brawl at Indiana’s Paragon Speedway.

Furthermore, in 2025 Moles led all drivers with 15 fast qualifying performances, tying Kevin Thomas Jr.’s 2018 performance for the most quick times in a single season with the series.

The former professional bass fisher and raisin farmer is an avid outdoorsman. Now for Mitchel Moles in 2026, hunting season includes the USAC National Sprint Car trail, and his target is a championship.

HAYDEN REINBOLD | REINBOLD-UNDERWOOD MOTORSPORTS #19

Perhaps no driver made as big of a stride during the past season than Hayden Reinbold on the USAC AMSOIL Sprint Car National Championship tour. So much so that, at the end of the 2025 season, he was named USAC’s National Most Improved Driver, the first Arizonan to accomplish the feat since Jerry Coons Jr. a quarter of a century earlier.

Reinbold improved by leaps and bounds from the start to the finish of the year at the wheel of his Reinbold-Underwood Motorsports number 19. All told, Reinbold clicked off five top-fives with a best finish of second at Lincoln Park Speedway to go along with another pair of podiums at Tri-State Speedway and Butler Motor Speedway.

Amid the closest Rookie battle in USAC National Sprint Car racing history, Reinbold trailed Gunnar Setser by a mere four point margin at the conclusion of the season.

But for 2026, gone is the stage of finding his footing in USAC Sprint Car racing. Now, he’s proven that he’s a true threat to win races anywhere and everywhere.

CHASE STOCKON | TOM & LAURIE SERTICH #92

One race many people point to as the most exciting duel of the 2025 USAC AMSOIL Sprint Car National Championship season came during the Indiana Sprint Week round at the Terre Haute Action Track.

The winner of that race was Chase Stockon, which fueled one of the most memorable moments of the year when longtime car owners Tom and Laurie Sertich became first time USAC national feature victors.

Not only did Stockon return to USAC National Sprint Car victory lane for the first time in five years that night, he also achieved the feat in his 500th career series start all while nursing a couple of broken bones in his right hand courtesy of a crash one week earlier.

It was truly a renaissance year for the Fort Branch, Indiana native whose first full year with the team provided its share of highlights and fast moments.

They constructed a foundation of success a year ago. With a strong base in place, Chase and Moose Racing are on the rise for 2026!

CALE COONS | JOE DOOLING AUTOSPORTS/CURB-AGAJANIAN #63

Cale Coons will compete for Max Papis Innovations Rookie of the Year honors with the USAC AMSOIL Sprint Car National Championship in 2026, as the full-time driver aboard the Dooling Autosports/Curb-Agajanian number 63.

The Greencastle, Indiana racer competed in eight USAC National Sprint Car events in 2025 and took to it like a duck to water by finishing inside the top-10 in six of his eight starts with a best result of fourth at Kokomo.

The now 17-year-old was named the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame co-Rookie of the Year in the Non-Wing Sprint Car poll for 2025 by virtue of five feature wins on the local Indiana sprint car level, including three at Lincoln Park, and once each at Circle City and Kokomo.

This year, Cale looks to translate that success to the USAC stage with his father, USAC career Triple Crown driving champ Jerry Coons Jr. as his crew chief. A legendary ride, a legendary surname. The next generation is here and he’s ready to make some noise!

LOGAN CALDERWOOD | REX CALDERWOOD RACING #6

The Calderwood name has been at the forefront of USAC racing dating back more than three decades in sprint car, midget and Silver Crown competition. Logan’s grandfather Dave won across all three USAC national divisions and fielded machinery for the likes of Jeff Gordon, Ryan Newman, Jimmy Sills, Kenny Irwin Jr. and Tracy Hines, just to name a few.

But now the time has come for Logan Calderwood, who has been a stalwart on the USAC CRA Sprint Car circuit for the past several years and has dabbled with the USAC national series by traveling across the land to compete with the series.

In 2025, Logan’s improvement was quite evident as he started 11 USAC National Sprint Car feature events and raced to a solid seventh place finish in the Indiana Sprint Week finale at Tri-State Speedway.

Hailing from Goodyear, Arizona, the 22-year-old will pilot his father’s Rex Calderwood Racing number 6. This year, a new generation of the Calderwood family goes full time for the first time as Logan blazes his own trail on the USAC circuit.

CHELBY HINTON | 2B RACING #2B

As Chelby Hinton puts it, he’s just some kid from Louisiana attempting to do big things.

Those words serve as his personal mantra as he chases after USAC AMSOIL Sprint Car National Championship Max Papis Innovations Rookie of the Year honors in 2026 with Scott Benic’s 2B Racing.

Louisiana natives in USAC National Sprint Car racing are quite rare. In fact, in the 70-year history of the series, Hinton is the first Pelican State racer to appear in the point standings. But in early 2025, Hinton made the move to Indiana.

The 20-year-old made eight USAC National Sprint Car starts for Phillips Motorsports a year ago and won a heat race on the final night of Smackdown at Kokomo. Last fall, Hinton made his debut with 2B Racing, winning his heat and finishing a strong third in the feature with the Midwest Thunder series.

New plans, big dreams. Chelby Hinton is all in on the 2026 USAC National Sprint Car scene, and this Louisiana kid has some big things to accomplish!