Keith Kunz/Curb-Agajanian Motorsports (KKM) is firing on all cylinders. Ryan Timms’ victory Friday night at Spoon River Speedway has garnered them five-straight wins with the Xtreme Outlaw Midget Series presented by Toyota.
Timms, 17, of Oklahoma City, OK, dominated the Series debut at the high-banked, 3/8-mile oval, leading all 25 laps unchallenged for his second Xtreme Outlaw-POWRi Challenge Series victory of the season. Going back to Timms’ win at Atomic Speedway in May, KKM has now won the last five Xtreme Outlaw events including the second race at Atomic (Cannon McIntosh), Doe Run Raceway (McIntosh), and Coles County Speedway (Ashton Torgerson).
Standing by Timms’ side on the podium Friday night were two of his teammates – McIntosh and Gavin Miller – who finished second and third to give the KKM squad a podium sweep of the event.
For never having seen the track before Friday night, Timms made it look like an old stomping ground, building a lead as large as 3.6 seconds at the checkered flag as he ripped the top lane around the historic Illinois oval.
“It finally got widened out and slick up to the lip and you were able to just run it pretty much wide open,” Timms said. “It felt fast, but it was a lot of fun up there.”
Timms took the lead on the opening lap from the outside pole, racing around McIntosh and fending-off the challenge from third-starting Chase McDermand. While Timms began to expand his gap out front, McDermand was busy trying to keep McIntosh behind him.
McIntosh, who started on the pole, said he did not get the start he was looking for, which gave McDermand the opportunity to get by underneath him.
“I throttled up and I just didn’t really get a launch,” McIntosh said. “They were able to just take off a little better. I don’t know what it was, if I just timed it wrong and they got to the throttle sooner. But everyone told me it was a clean start.”
McIntosh chased McDermand through the halfway point of the race but was unable to get close enough to make a move. And then, the caution flag was thrown with nine laps remaining.
POWRi championship chaser Gunnar Setser sat still at the bottom of Turn 3 and took a push off the track. On the restart, McDermand tried to defend the second spot, but McIntosh had other plans.
“I kinda had a feeling he was gonna go down and try something different into (Turn) 1,” McIntosh said. “We went green, and luckily I didn’t follow him, and I went to the top where I’d been running and got a really good run on him out of 2 and chased him down the backstretch and slid him into 3.”
While McDermand did slide McIntosh back in Turns 1-2, he was unable to evade the crossover as McIntosh was able to wrestle away the runner-up spot for good on Lap 18.
“I feel like judging it right on the restart, I made the right decision and chose the right lane,” McIntosh said. “Little things like that can change your Feature around. I know third is not a big difference from second, but we most likely should have ran third in that race and just got a really good restart and got by him.”
While the two traded sliders, Timms was pulling away again out front. Though he originally said he did not want to see the yellow, he said he felt faster after the yellow.
“Before that caution, I was kinda peeling off of the cushion off Turn 2 and turning down and making the straightaway longer,” Timms said. “But after that caution, I just stayed all the way up against it and it felt way better. I think I was actually faster doing that.”
By the time he came across the stripe to take the checkered flag, Timms had built a 3.6-second gap over McIntosh, who notched his 15th-straight top-five finish with the Series. Behind him came Miller, who had run ninth the entire race until the yellow was displayed on Lap 17.
In the final nine laps, Miller advanced six positions to finish third, riding in the bottom lane and picking cars off one-by-one.
“I just kinda picked a line where everyone else wasn’t running,” Miller said. “Everyone was just running the top. I just ran the bottom nice and good. I had some guys (in front of me) trying to race each other and slide each other. I could just roll the bottom all the way to the tires and pass them. It ultimately worked out.”
Hayden Reinbold crossed in fourth to score his best finish of the season while McDermand held on to complete the top-five.
UP NEXT
The Xtreme Outlaw Midgets are back in action at Spoon River on Saturday, July 20, for Round 6 of the Xtreme Outlaw-POWRi Challenge Series with a $5,000 grand prize on the line in the 30-lap main event.
Tickets are available for purchase in advance by clicking here. If you can’t make it to the track to watch in person, stream every lap live on DIRTVision.
ABBREVIATED RESULTS (view full results)
Feature (25 Laps): 1. 67-Ryan Timms[2]; 2. 71K-Cannon McIntosh[1]; 3. 97-Gavin Miller[9]; 4. 19AZ-Hayden Reinbold[6]; 5. 40-Chase McDermand[3]; 6. 14S-Tyler Edwards[4]; 7. 25-Jacob Denney[10]; 8. 7U-Zach Daum[5]; 9. 97K-Kale Drake[11]; 10. 67K-Ashton Torgerson[8]; 11. 21K-Karter Sarff[7]; 12. 56D-Mitchell Davis[12]; 13. 55-Trevor Cline[13]; 14. 1K-Brayton Lynch[16]; 15. 66-Jayden Clay[18]; 16. 7T-Adam Taylor[15]; 17. 43-Gunnar Setser[14]; 18. 42-Kevin Battefeld[20]; 19. 83-Will Armitage[17]; 20. 98-Elijah Gile[19]
