Cale Coons — Chip Off The Old Block

SPEEDWAY, Ind. — Cale Coons has earned honors as the 2026 USAC AMSOIL Sprint Car National Championship Max Papis Innovations Rookie of the Year with a superb season in which he became a first-time series feature winner.

The 17-year-old son of USAC career Triple Crown champion Jerry Coons Jr. became the first son of a past USAC National Sprint Car champion to become a Rookie of the Year with the series.

The Greencastle, Indiana native won once, took 11th in the overall standings, led a total of 32 laps, finished inside the top five on four occasions, grabbed 23 top tens, and led all drivers with 16 heat race victories at the wheel of the Dooling Autosports-Curb-Agajanian/Curb Records – Kalitta Charters/DRC/Stanton Chevy No. 63, a team that featured three generations of the Coons family at the track on race days.

“It’s very special to get to travel the country with my dad and my grandpa,” Coons said. “It was definitely a lot of learning for all of us. (Dad) hasn’t really crew chiefed a sprint car before. He’s driven and he’s obviously worked on them and stuff, but he’s been a racecar driver all his life, so it was different for him.”

After getting his feet wet, so to speak, with eight starts on the USAC National Sprint Car trail in 2025, Coons set off toward a full series run in 2026 and was regularly a finisher in the top half of the field. It was his initial start in 2025 at Lincoln Park Speedway’s Sprintacular where Coons turned heads with a sixth place run, while also adding five local Indiana triumphs at Lincoln Park (3), Circle City (1), and Kokomo (1) that led to him being named Non-Wing Sprint Car Rookie of the Year by the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame poll for 2025.

“Going into last year, we didn’t really expect to run any USAC shows,” Coons explained. “We were kind of just going to get our feet wet in local stuff. Then, we finally convinced my dad to go to the Lincoln Park Sprintacular and we ran sixth. So, that kind of opened our options and eyes to going to different races and we did a few more and had some great runs.”

Throughout the spring and summer of ’26, Coons was strong, adding three Rod End Supply Hard Charger awards to his performance chart: 18th to 10th at Terre Haute in May, 15th to fifth at Red Hill in June, and 18th to 8th at The Dirt Track at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in July, displaying his talent and progress in learning the ropes of full-time USAC national competition.

“Probably one of the biggest learning curves was learning everyone’s driving style and what you’re going against,” Coons remarked.

After a particularly rough stretch throughout Indiana Sprint Week, Coons and crew regrouped and came out swinging at Kokomo’s Sprint Car Smackdown, finishing third on the opening night before their biggest night arrived 24 hours later.

“You’ll have those bad nights, but then you’ll also have those top fives, and obviously, that win at Smackdown later in the year definitely makes it easier to come back and reminds you that you can still be in contention every night.”

After leading the first 13 laps of the event, veteran Thomas Meseraull drove by him for the lead. When many sprint car Rookies might fold, Coons, instead, decided to go on the attack and slid Meseraull back to retake the lead just one lap later. Ultimately, Coons led 29 of 30 laps en route to victory and a night he’ll always cherish.

“That weekend was just two years after my first ever time in a sprint car,” Coons recalled. “Within two years to get my first sprint car win and compete like we are competing at the national level is really cool. That night was just special. Kokomo is just so iconic.”

With it, Coons became the first USAC National Sprint Car Rookie of the Year to win a feature in the same year as his Rookie season since Emerson Axsom in 2022.

“Before the race, my dad said, ‘just don’t get in a slider battle, and don’t slow yourself down. Just keep doing what you’re doing.’ But I wanted to be out front. I knew that if I could be out front by the time we got to lapped traffic, it would be extremely hard to pass because it kind of got crummy through the middle and so slick that it was hard to start sliding guys. Luckily, I was able to get back by him. We kind of tapped back bumper to front bumper, which helped me get boosted through the corner and get away from him again.”

Together, Cale and Jerry, a 17-time series winner in his own right, became just the 10th father/son duo to win a USAC National Sprint Car main event as a driver.

Coons also snagged two other podium finishes with a third at Kokomo on Smackdown opening night as well as a runner-up result in the Bomb City 40 at Route 66 Motor Speedway in Amarillo, Texas.

But for Coons, to not only race against the guys he grew up watching his father compete against is a neat opportunity, but to beat them is even more surreal.

“I’ve watched all these guys growing up my whole life,” Coons reflected. “So, it was kind of weird to get to race against them. I’ve looked up to the all these guys since I was little.”

Coons was one of the 10 drivers to compete in all 48 USAC National Sprint Car events in 2026, only missing the transfer spot into the feature twice. One of those occurred during the Bloomington round of Indiana Sprint Week where he opted to take a provisional. Starting 25th in the field, he charged up to a seventh-place finish. The +18 was the biggest advancement of the year by any driver in the series for 2026.

As for his team, Coons feels quite fortunate to have such a strong team of supporters in his corner who’ve been his teammates in achieving Rookie of the Year honors for 2026.

“Mike Curb has treated us very well,” Coons began. “Joe Dooling has treated me better than I could ever wish for. He’s given me every opportunity that I’ve wanted since I was a little kid. So, I just can’t thank him enough. Doug Kalitta and Kalitta Charters has also played a huge part in this. I just can’t thank those guys enough for letting me come out every week and run the national tour.”

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