Nov 4: Cale Coons Named 2026 USAC National Sprint Car Rookie of the Year
Cale Coons of Greencastle, Indiana, earned the 2026 USAC AMSOIL Sprint Car National Championship Max Papis Innovations Rookie of the Year after a full-time debut that included his first series feature win.
Coons, the 17-year-old son of USAC Triple Crown champion Jerry Coons Jr., finished 11th in the national points in the Dooling Autosports-Curb-Agajanian No. 63. He scored one feature win, four top-fives, 23 top-10s, 32 laps led and a series-leading 16 heat victories. He is the first son of a past USAC National Sprint Car champion to win the series Rookie of the Year award, according to a USAC media release carried by FloRacing.
His breakthrough came at Kokomo Speedway’s Sprint Car Smackdown. After finishing third on opening night, Coons led 29 of 30 laps the following night for his first USAC National Sprint Car win. Thomas Meseraull briefly took the lead after Coons’ early run up front; Coons slid back by one lap later and held on. He is the first USAC National Sprint Car Rookie of the Year to also win a feature in the same season since Emerson Axsom in 2022. Coons and Jerry Coons Jr. became the 10th father-son duo to each win a USAC National Sprint Car main event as drivers.
Coons contested all 48 USAC National Sprint Car events in 2026, missing the feature transfer only twice. One of those nights, at Bloomington during Indiana Sprint Week, he used a provisional, started 25th and finished seventh — a plus-18 that ranked as the second-biggest feature advance of the season. He also finished second in the Bomb City 40 at Route 66 Motor Speedway in Amarillo, Texas, and collected three Rod End Supply Hard Charger awards earlier in the year.