Mitchel Moles celebrates in victory lane at Big Diamond Speedway Thursday. (Rich Forman photo)

By Richie Murray, USAC Media

POTTSVILLE, Pa. (June 18, 2026) – For the past two years, Mitchel Moles had the rare distinction of having an Eastern Storm championship on his resume, but not an Eastern Storm feature victory.

The Raisin City, Calif., native dusted his hands of that particular statistic with a wire-to-wire performance Thursday night, leading all 30 laps to earn his first career USAC Yokohama Tire Eastern Storm presented by Levan Machine win at Big Diamond Speedway.

Furthermore, Moles finally got off the schneid at Big Diamond after finishing as the runner-up in each of his past two appearances at the three-eighths-mile dirt oval. He led 15 laps and finished second in 2024, then followed it up with another second place run in 2025.

Moles was determined not to let one slip away from him this time around.

Despite a feisty challenge from Briggs Danner down the stretch, Moles didn’t slip up on his way to his fifth USAC AMSOIL National Sprint Car Series triumph of the season aboard his Reinbold-Underwood Motorsports/AME – Mesilla Valley Transportation/Spike/Stanton Chevy.

In his first four seasons of USAC National Sprint Car competition, Moles had tallied a total of five victories. Through the first 22 events of the 2026 campaign, he has added five more.

His total of 10 series wins has elevated him to 54th place on the all-time list alongside Briggs Danner, Thomas Meseraull, Eddie Sachs, Tony Stewart, and Johnny Thomson.

But turning silver into something even shinier at Big Diamond proved to be among the sweetest of those victories.

“Oh, man! It feels good to finally get one of these at Eastern Storm,” said a relieved Moles. “I told Logan (Seavey), I think it was two years ago, ‘Man, I really want to win here.’ It's got a hell of a crowd and it’s in the middle of nowhere. It’s kind of the stuff I like.”

Moles solidified a front row spot with his qualifying run, despite a near misstep that could’ve turned his night on its head, so to speak.

“We battled a little adversity there in qualifying and biked up, then we were able to stay in the top five,” Moles recalled.

To the naked eye, there seemed to be slim to no adversity for Moles throughout the first two-thirds of the race, while he built up a four second lead on the field.

But to Moles, everything wasn’t quite right until a timely yellow for 18th-running Olivia Thayer’s spin in turns one and two on the 19th lap.

On most occasions, a yellow flag erasing a significant lead is a frustration, but for Moles it was welcomed this time.

“My mind was racing so fast; I was just turning every knob,” Moles admitted. “I fired off and I really wasn't that good, and I just kept working on it and kept working on it. I needed to get my ladder down, and once that yellow came out, I was able to get my bird cage down and I got a lot better.

“We just missed it a little bit, and that’s when I said, ‘I need to just really get the car back underneath me,’ and I was able to do that under that yellow and put myself in a lot more comfortable spot.”

Despite the deficit at the time of the caution, Danner was definitely on the move. Starting sixth, Danner charged around Brady Bacon in turn one for the fourth position on lap nine, then grabbed third from Chase Stockon amid lapped traffic on the back straightaway on lap 16.

On the lap-20 restart, Danner took second from Justin Grant on the back straightaway to move into second, leaving nobody else between himself and Danner for the lead.

With five laps to go, Danner was right on Moles’ tail tank, showing him a nose as he inched closer and closer. But at that moment, Danner got four wheels on the turn-two cushion and lost a ton of ground to Moles, who sprinted away to a 12-car-length lead in the blink of an eye.

Moles recalled the previous night’s race at Bridgeport where the roles were reversed. There, Moles showed his nose, and Danner shot away to victory while Moles had to settle for second.

“I did that to Briggs last night and he just took off and went, so I just followed his path there,” Moles explained. “They're on a roll right now and he’s really clicking. I was just happy to get my [Jacob’s] ladder down because I felt really bad there. I guess I had a three second lead, but it didn't feel that way.”

Moles had nearly run into a similar situation earlier in the feature, but had such a lead that it didn’t leave much of a dent in his margin at the time.

“You do that once and it’ll teach you a lesson,” Moles stated. “Luckily, I was able to recover. I was pretty far on the banking on the backside there. I took that out of Jac Haudenschild’s playbook there. He did that at racetracks all the time.”

Moles finished the task down the stretch, crossing underneath the checkered by 1.498 seconds over Danner, while Bacon got third from Grant via a turn-three slider with five laps remaining. Grant slotted in fourth and Chase Stockon rounded out the top five.

Robert Ballou persevered despite an engine that wasn't quite running at full song for the last two-thirds of the feature. He advanced nine positions in the feature, starting 15th and finishing sixth to earn Rod End Supply Hard Charger honors.

USAC National Sprint Car Series; Eastern Storm Tour; Big Diamond Speedway; Pottsville, Pa.; June 18, 2026

Qualifying (best of two laps): 1. Briggs Danner, 39, Hogue-14.871; 2. Kyle Cummins, 3p, Petty-14.927; 3. Justin Grant, 4, TOPP-14.972; 4. Brady Bacon, 20, Dyson-15.201; 5. Mitchel Moles, 19AZ, Reinbold/Underwood-15.255; 6. Chase Stockon, 92, Sertich-15.277; 7. Jake Swanson, 5T, Daming Swanson-15.284; 8. C.J. Leary, 30, Leary-15.292; 9. Hayden Reinbold, 19, Reinbold/Underwood-15.301; 10. Cale Coons, 63, Dooling/Curb-Agajanian-15.319; 11. Logan Seavey, 57, Abacus-15.324; 12. Robert Ballou, 12, Ballou-15.331; 13. Christian Bruno, 3BC, JMO-15.373; 14. Kevin Thomas Jr., 3R, Rock Steady-15.404; 15. Ricky Lewis, 41, Lewis-15.521; 16. Charles Davis Jr., 47, Davis-15.543; 17. Ronald Helmick, 22R, Helmick-15.698; 18. Steven Drevicki, 19s, Drevicki-15.737; 19. Olivia Thayer, 39T, Thayer-16.536; 20. Dirk Rimrott, 1x, Rimrott-17.062; 21. James Turnbull II, 5, Baldwin/Fox-NT.

Heat #1 (8 laps, all transfer): 1. 1. Charles Davis Jr. (1), 2. Brady Bacon (5), 3. Cale Coons (3), 4. Briggs Danner (6), 5. Jake Swanson (4), 6. Christian Bruno (2), 7. Olivia Thayer (7). [2:05.481]

Heat #2 (8 laps, all transfer): 1. Kevin Thomas Jr. (2), 2. Mitchel Moles (5), 3. Ronald Helmick (1), 4. C.J. Leary (4), 5. Kyle Cummins (6), 6. Logan Seavey (3). [2:04.080]

Heat #3 (8 laps, all transfer): 1. Ricky Lewis (2), 2. Steven Drevicki (1), 3. Robert Ballou (3), 4. Chase Stockon (5), 5. Hayden Reinbold (4), 6. Justin Grant (6), 7. James Turnbull II (7). [2:07.317]

Feature (30 laps): 1. Mitchel Moles (2), 2. Briggs Danner (6), 3. Brady Bacon (3), 4. Justin Grant (4), 5. Chase Stockon (1), 6. Robert Ballou (15), 7. Kyle Cummins (5), 8. Jake Swanson (10), 9. Hayden Reinbold (12), 10. Ricky Lewis (8), 11. Cale Coons (13), 12. Christian Bruno (16), 13. Steven Drevicki (18), 14. C.J. Leary (11), 15. Kevin Thomas Jr. (7), 16. Charles Davis Jr. (9), 17. Ronald Helmick (17), 18. James Turnbull II (20), 19. Olivia Thayer (19), 20. Logan Seavey (14), 21. Dirk Rimrott (21). [NT]

Lap Leader(s): Mitchel Moles 1-30.

Hard Charger: Robert Ballou (+9)