Karter Sarff continues to show his bite in the fight for the 2025 Xtreme-POWRi Challenge Series title.
The Mason City, IL driver began the night with a win in DIRTVision Heat 4 and High-Point Honors, but drew a six-car invert for Friday’s Xtreme Outlaw Midget Series presented by Toyota 25-lap Feature.
Colton Robinson and Kaiden Manders led the field to green, but the two cars tapped wheels in the first turn, which led to Cannon McIntosh taking the lead with a three-wide move for the top spot.
McIntosh showed the way in the early stages, while Sarff had to maneuver through the traffic with multiple slide jobs to move his way up to second place by Lap 5.
The two-second lead McIntosh held was eliminated on Lap 7 with a caution flag, giving the field a second opportunity to chase the lead.
McIntosh retained the lead on the restart, but Sarff did not let him out of his sight as the chance for the lead arose on Lap 10. Momentum off of Turn 2 let the door open for “The Shark” to swing low through Turn 3 and clear McIntosh’s No. 71K for the lead. Though McIntosh attempted to cross over Sarff, he did not have enough distance to make the attempt work in his favor.
While Sarff never relinquished the lead, the hornet’s nest behind him continued to use every form of passing possible to make forward progress in their positions. Among the bunch was Xtreme Outlaw Midgets points leader Jacob Denney, who climbed his way into the top five by the halfway mark after starting the night in 12th place.
As lap traffic became a factor inside the final five laps, Sarff had to go outside of his usual lane to cross through the cars and create distance on the lead cars behind him.
With Sarff’s gap on the leaders secured, he crossed the twin checkered flags for his second Xtreme Outlaw Midgets win of 2025 and grew his Challenge Series lead to 14 points over Denney.
“All the stars seemed to align,” Sarff said. “I don’t know how many laps it took for us to get to second, but it didn’t seem like very many. I just found the right holes at the right time, it was just one of them rare occasions where everything goes the way that you want it to. This all goes back to Paul May; this is his home track, so he knows it very well, and we’ve always been good in the Midget, so we expected to have a pretty good night and did just that.”
Denney took home a second-place finish after taking over the position on Lap 15. His work rewarded him with an 87-point Series lead and the Summit Racing Equipment Hard Charger Award.
“Yeah, it was gnarly with everyone sliding each other all the way around,“ Denney said. “You had to find a hole, fill it, put them away, and move on to the next guy. I had to be the aggressor, but if you don’t clear a slide job, you were just hanging for the rest of the way, then you got people coming behind, blowing by you.
“So, I had to let them do what they wanted to do, and then once they started racing, I just picked them off as that went. So they were trying to be smart about it. I’ve been trying too hard, so I had to calm down there for a little bit. But being back on the podium, it feels good.
Key wrapped up Friday night’s podium finishers with a third-place finish for his second career appearance on the podium with the Xtreme Outlaw Midgets.
“It was really tricky because the only way you had to pass around the track was to slide,” Key said. “You had to pull the slider, break your momentum, then the guy you just slid is crossing you over, and it becomes a slingshot. You had to race them so hard that the cars behind you caught up, and it turned into a big hornet’s nest.
“I’ll have to go back to the video, I feel like I made some good and bad ones. Like, I got around Cannon and then Jacob passed me, so it was one of those tracks that I really didn’t know. But overall, third is a great night for us, and I think we’ll be good tomorrow too.”
Robinson, from Titusville, FL, earned his first career top-five finish with the Series in his fourth-place finish, and 2022 Series champion Zach Daum finished fifth aboard the Pat O’Dell No. 5D.
RECAP NOTES:
Smith Titanium Quick Time Award: Ethan Mitchell
Toyota Heat 1 Winner: Hayden Wise
CASM Safety Products Heat 2 Winner: Colton Robinson
TJ Forged Heat 3 Winner: Kaiden Manders
DIRTVision Heat 4 Winner: Karter Sarff
Heat 5 Winner: Joe B. Miller
High-Point Driver: Karter Sarff
Last Chance Showdown Winners: Chase McDermand, Trey Marcham
Summit Racing Equipment Hard Charger: Jacob Denney
Honest Abe Roofing 16th Place Finisher: Branigan Roark
Up Next: The Xtreme Outlaw Midgets and POWRi National Midget League clash once more as new royalty will be crowned in Saturday night’s King of Coles finale on May 31.
If you can’t make it to the track, you can watch all the action live on DIRTVision – either online or by downloading the DIRTVision App.
Feature (25 Laps): 1. 21K-Karter Sarff[6]; 2. 67-Jacob Denney[12]; 3. 9U-Kameron Key[4]; 4. 67K-Colton Robinson[1]; 5. 5D-Zach Daum[8]; 6. 71K-Cannon McIntosh[3]; 7. 40-Chase McDermand[15]; 8. 55-Trevor Cline[9]; 9. 98K-Brandon Carr[11]; 10. 94-Hayden Wise[7]; 11. 97-Gavin Miller[5]; 12. 51B-Joe B Miller[10]; 13. 5U-Michael Faccinto[14]; 14. 12-Trey Marcham[16]; 15. 72-Alex Karpowicz[19]; 16. 44-Branigan Roark[22]; 17. 92-Daniel Robinson[17]; 18. 71-Kaiden Manders[2]; 19. 56E-Tyler Edwards[20]; 20. 16TH-Kevin Newton[21]; 21. 91-Mitchell Davis[13]; 22. 26-Corbin Rueschenberg[18]
