Ryan Timms took over the lead from Keith Kunz Motorsports (KKM) Toyota teammate Jade Avedisian on lap 15 and never looked back in winning the 40-lap USAC NOS Energy Drink National Midget Series Mid-America Midget Week finale at Jefferson County Speedway Saturday.
The victory is the third overall of the season for Timms and the 12th career national midget feature win for the 17-year-old Oklahoma City native. With Timms triumph, Toyota-powered drivers placed first in each of the four Mid-America Midget Week events.
Starting from the outside of the front row, Avedisian moved into the lead ahead of KKM teammates Gavin Miller and Timms on the opening lap with Timms moving into second on lap two.
Avedisian continued to hold down the top spot, but started to catch lapped traffic on lap 11, allowing Timms to close the gap. On lap 15, Avedisian would get hung up behind a lapped car allowing Timms to drive underneath her for the lead. One lap later, the lapped car would hop over the caution in turn one, making contact with Avedisian and ended up spinning and collecting both Miller and Friday’s winner Justin Grant. Each would be forced to the back of the field.
Once Timms took the lead, he proved to be the class of the field opening up a 1.5 second lead over Avedisian by lap 25. The two would hold down their positions until Zach Daum would get past Avedisian for second on lap 37, with KKM’s Cannon McIntosh eventually overtaking her for third on lap 38.
Timms would go on to take the checkered flag 2.109 seconds ahead of Daum to collect the $10,000 first prize. McIntosh would place third, Jacob Denney was fourth and Avedisian finished fifth. Toyota drivers would capture four more top-10 finishes on the night with USAC point leader Daison Pursley coming home in sixth, directly ahead of Kale Drake. Kyle Jones and Grant would round out the top-10 in ninth- and tenth place, respectively.
After four races in five nights, the USAC NOS Energy Drink National Midget Series will get a well-deserved break, returning to action on September 1-2 at Angell Park Speedway in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin.
Toyota Quotes:
Ryan Timms, Keith Kunz Motorsports Toyota: “Being able to move around here is really important as the lines move around quite a bit. At the beginning it was top dominant, but once we got to lapped traffic, my car was able to move around and we got past Jade. From there on, it was just racing my own race. I’m just so happy to get into Victory Lane here. I have to thank the whole KKM team, they gave me a rocket ship tonight. And thanks to JBL and Toyota for all of their support.”
Toyota-Powered Drivers USAC Jefferson County Speedway Saturday Feature Results
Cannon McIntosh – 3rd
Jacob Denney – 4th
Jade Avedisian – 5th
Daison Pursley – 6th
Kale Drake – 7th
Kyle Jones – 9th
Justin Grant – 10th
Gavin Miller – 11th
Mitchell Davis – 12th
Zach Wigal – 13th
Trey Zorn – 15th
Ricky Thornton – 17th
Kenney Johnson – 22nd
Toyota USAC PR
