There was one thing Chase McDermand wanted for his 24th birthday; something he hadn’t experienced in 10 months. On Saturday night at Tulsa Speedway, albeit a day late, he got it – a win with the Xtreme Outlaw Midget Series presented by Toyota.
Last year, McDermand led all drivers in Feature wins with six, but 2024 started out a different story. In each of the 20 Xtreme Outlaw Series races held since his last win at Red Hill Raceway in September 2023, he was shut out of Victory Lane. He had gone 17 Series races this year with a best finish of second, three times, but still hungered for the top of the mountain.
After a 14th-place effort on his birthday at Arrowhead Speedway Friday night, he was desperate for a spark to help him break through. But after setting Whitz Racing Products Quick Time in Qualifying, winning Toyota Heat Race 1 and claiming the pole for the Feature, McDermand had been charged with the skill and speed he needed to finally punch through, leading all 30 laps of the main event to bank his eighth career Series victory.
“It feels almost as good as the first one; it’s been so long since we’ve been in Victory Lane,” McDermand, of Springfield, IL, said. “Everybody’s been working super hard over here and they deserve a lot better finishes than what we’d been putting together this season.”
Despite his early struggles, McDermand has found consistency this season, posting four podium finishes, nine top-fives and top-10s in each race except two coming into Saturday night’s program. All of which has combined to seed him third in the Series points standings – two spots higher from where he finished in the 2023 championship chase. So, what kept him out of Victory Lane for over half the season?
“I feel like we’ve had good speed at times – it’s kind of been sporadic – but I just wasn’t quite able to capitalize, maybe it was a second place or a third place,” McDermand said. “From last season to now, I feel like everybody else has kind of improved a little bit, and we stayed a little bit stagnant from last year to this year. Just didn’t do quite as good of a job over the winter as some of the other teams.”
Lining up on the pole of Saturday’s main event, McDermand jumped out to the lead on the first lap and began to open a gap on second-place Trevor Cline. He held strong through the race’s first restart on Lap 7 but soon had company at the head of the field from home-state racer Jason McDougal.
McDougal, the 26-year-old open-wheel standout from Broken Arrow, OK, had made passes on Zach Daum and Cline to move into second and by Lap 10 had caught McDermand. Into Turns 1 and 2 they raced – McDermand through the middle-high lane and McDougal with a big run around the bottom – before McDougal got a great drive off Turn 2 and sped by McDermand for the lead down the backstretch.
“I probably wasn’t running the right line, and that’s the thing about being the leader – you’re kind of a sitting duck out there when the track starts to change or a new line develops,” McDermand said. “His car was really good on the bottom and mine was really a little too tight to run down there, so I was a little bit worried when I saw he was peeking his nose.”
But McDermand wasn’t going to concede to McDougal. With great speed into Turn 3, McDermand ripped the high line around the 1/4-mile oval and got the speed he needed to nose back in front of McDougal at the start/finish line.
“I got a little antsy and showed my nose on the bottom of (Turns) 1 and 2 too much,” McDougal said. “I was fading a little bit in 3 and 4 but still maintaining, but I should’ve waited another half a lap or another two laps and just played my cards a little better.”
The two raced side-by-side for the next four corners before McDermand was able to get back in control of the spot on Lap 13 with a move to the outside through Turns 1 and 2. For the next nine laps, McDermand went to work on getting through lapped traffic as he proceeded to open a gap of two full seconds on McDougal in second.
That advantage held until Lap 22, when the caution was thrown for Tanner Conn stopped in Turn 4. This erased McDermand’s lead, restacked the field and put McDougal on his bumper for the restart.
With one final chance at the lead, McDougal made a bid for it down low in Turns 1 and 2 on the restart, but McDermand shut it down with a block and good speed off Turn 2. From there, McDermand was smooth and cruised to the $4,000 payday – a nice check for turning 24.
“Even though it came a day late, better late than never I guess,” McDermand said with a smile. “It was super nice to celebrate yesterday; it didn’t have a good night, but I was able to cap off the weekend with a good run.”
Over a second-and-a-half back, McDougal crossed the stripe with the runner-up spot to claim his first career Xtreme Outlaw Series podium in only his second Series start.
Behind McDougal came Zach Daum, crossing the stripe in third following a hard-fought battle after the final restart. Ryan Timms, who had come from ninth on the starting grid, took third from Daum on the Lap 22 restart and second from McDougal on Lap 26 after putting a slide job on the RAMCO No. 7P.
However, Timms was unable to hold it on the podium as McDougal executed the crossover on Timms’ slider, and Daum was able to get back by for third after Timms overshot Turns 1 and 2 and nearly spun on the final lap.
Racing only 10 minutes down the road from the Trifecta Motorsports shop in Tulsa, Daum was injected with confidence and good spirit after collecting his sixth podium of the seaon.
“With them being just down the road, you always want to run good,” Daum said. “There’s been a ton of people at the trailer all night. Anytime they get to run in front of a hometown crowd and friends and family that comes around. It’s good to end up on the podium.”
Timms held on to finish fourth while his Keith Kunz/Curb-Agajanian Motorsports (KKM) teammate Cannon McIntosh completed the top-five with a last-lap pass to keep his streak of 18-straight top-five finishes going.
UP NEXT
The Xtreme Outlaw Midget Series presented by Toyota is back in action next Friday-Saturday, Aug. 2-3, at Federated Auto Parts Raceway at I-55 as part of the World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series’ marquee Ironman 55 event.
Pre-sale tickets for the Ironman 55 are on sale now at WorldofOutlaws.com. If you can’t be there to watch in person, stream every lap live on DIRTVision.
ABBREVIATED RESULTS (view full results)
Feature (30 Laps): 1. 40-Chase McDermand[1]; 2. 7P-Jason McDougal[4]; 3. 7U-Zach Daum[2]; 4. 67-Ryan Timms[9]; 5. 71K-Cannon McIntosh[10]; 6. 67K-Ashton Torgerson[8]; 7. 3P-Drake Edwards[7]; 8. 97-Gavin Miller[5]; 9. 60X-Kyle Jones[13]; 10. 55-Trevor Cline[3]; 11. 11A-Andrew Felker[14]; 12. 71-Jade Avedisian[6]; 13. 14S-Tyler Edwards[17]; 14. 5U-Peter Smith[11]; 15. 93-Kyle Bellm[15]; 16. 19AZ-Hayden Reinbold[16]; 17. 98-Gunnar Setser[12]; 18. 21-Jonathan Beason[21]; 19. 66-Jayden Clay[20]; 20. 85-Tanner Conn[18]; 21. 19-Taylor Hall[23]; 22. 7-Shannon McQueen[19]; 23. 10J-Noah Harris[22]
