MATTOON, Ill. — Jacob Denney has certainly been the king of the 2026 USAC NOS Energy Drink Midget National Championship thus far, evidenced by his 71-point lead in the series standings and his season-leading four feature victories.
On Monday night in USAC’s debut at Coles County Speedway in, Denney quite literally got the royal treatment, sporting a crown and a robe, while sitting on the winner’s throne in victory lane where he was dubbed “The King of Coles.”
The Galloway, Ohio native led all 40 laps of the feature to capture victory in the second running of the Lake Land College King of Coles on the sixth-mile dirt oval in east central Illinois.
Denney ran second and seventh on each night of the King of Coles in 2025, but this year, he took control from start to finish to pick up the win and $6,000 worth of Coles cash.
“Last year, we ran here and I started deep both nights, so I knew how important it was to start on the front row here,” Denney explained. “Luckily, we caught a break with the heat races and bumped up to the pole. So, that helped a lot. You can just run your own race and not have to do anything too crazy whereas you’ve got to race really hard when you’re back there. I kind of saved myself and then saved my stuff.”
It was Denney’s eighth career USAC National Midget triumph.
Denney ran his streak of top-three podium finishes with the series to seven dating back to July, a run that includes three wins, two runner-up results, and a pair of thirds in his Keith Kunz-Curb-Agajanian Motorsports/JBL Audio – TRD – Mobil 1 – Curb/LynK/Speedway Toyota No. 67.
For the first 30 laps, Denney practically owned the joint. But with 10 to go, the swarm began to surround him. Thomas Jr. double dipped along the bottom to surge from fourth to second on the 30th circuit, first by Brecken Reese in turn two, then by Justin Grant at the exit of turn four.
Moments later, KTJ was fully alongside Denney who occupied a lane a couple steps higher. Fittingly, in the same city in which the great Gadabout Gaddis hailed from – the host of the first nationally syndicated TV show about fly fishing – Thomas Jr. had been able to reel Denney in. But like a light switch, Denney turned it up and was able to gap himself from KTJ, Grant, the field, et al.
“The last time I got to lapped traffic, they were all running the bottom,” Denney pointed out. “I was just trying to get into lapped traffic because I knew once I got in, it’d be hard to slide me with cars on the bottom and me running on the top. I was trying to pace myself. It was really tricky down there, but once I saw (Kevin Thomas Jr.), I had to turn it back up and get going again.”
Reese, who had run second for the first 29 laps, had his hopes and dreams of a best career USAC finish go up in a shower of sparks on the back straightaway on lap 34 while running fourth, when a piece of his car let loose and dropped onto the track surface, then immediately began to coast to bring out the caution, thus setting up a restart with seven laps to go and the field bunched up.
Throughout the final stint, ninth-starting Grant moved up to second with four laps remaining as he went top side around the outside of Thomas Jr. That said, Grant still had about six car lengths to make up on Denney, which proved to be too much to overcome. By then, Denney had put his stamp on victory at the Labor Day night show.
Denney took the checkered flag 0.459 seconds ahead of Grant. Thomas Jr. took third with Gavin Miller fourth, while Karter Sarff worked his way up from the 12th starting spot to round out the top five.
After 40 laps, you could crown him. Denney is who we thought he was, and he was indeed the King of Coles.
“All these guys bust their tails,” Denney said in praise of his crew. “Keith (Kunz) and Pete (Willoughby) give us great stuff to be able to do this and run up front every week. It’s just our job, and hopefully, we do our job every night and run up front.”
USAC NOS Energy Drink Midget National Championship, Coles County Speedway, Mattoon, Ill., Sept. 7, 2026
LEARNLAB QUALIFYING: 1. Kale Drake, 4, RMS-9.850 (Track Record); 2. Hayden Reinbold, 19AZ, Reinbold-Underwood-9.865; 3. Kevin Thomas Jr., 14, 4 Kings-9.918; 4. Alex Midkiff, 11, Midkiff-9.944; 5. Mack Leopard, 40L, McDermand-10.020; 6. Brecken Reese, 20Q, Reese-10.030; 7. Jacob Denney, 67, Kunz/Curb-Agajanian-10.076; 8. Ethan Mitchell, 19m, Bundy Built-10.093; 9. Gunnar Setser, 43, Arnold-10.173; 10. Karter Sarff, 21K, O’Dell-10.192; 11. Jake Neuman, 3N, O’Dell-10.193; 12. Kyle Jones, 7TX, Engler-10.213; 13. Gavin Miller, 97, Kunz/Curb-Agajanian-10.225; 14. Zach Daum 1, O’Dell-10.284; 15. Justin Grant, 87, CBI-10.304; 16. Drew Sherman, 19, Reinbold/Underwood-10.309; 17. Bradley Cox, 45, Mason-10.335; 18. Colton Robinson, 67K, Kunz/Curb-Agajanian-10.370; 19. Jakeb Boxell, 54, 4 Kings-10.376; 20. Cody Beard, 91, Harris/Zimmerman-10.670; 21. Chase Hodge, 5J, Hodge-10.737; 22. Devin Feger, 12, Durbin-10.843; 23. Sammy Males, 4m, Males-10.855; 24. Daniel Robinson, 12x, Durbin-10.950; 25. Chris Hartman, 35s, Hodge-11.020; 26. Robert Carson, 99K, Carson-NT.
K1 RACEGEAR FIRST HEAT: (10 laps, top 6 transfer to the feature, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Gavin Miller (2), 2. Jacob Denney (4), 3. Drew Sherman (1), 4. Karter Sarff (3), 5. Alex Midkiff (5), 6. Jakeb Boxell (7), 7. Kale Drake (6), 8. Devin Feger (8), 9. Chris Hartman (9). 1:44.579 (New Track Record)
TJ FORGED SECOND HEAT: (10 laps, top 6 transfer to the feature, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Zach Daum (2), 2. Mack Leopard (5), 3. Jake Neuman (3), 4. Ethan Mitchell (4), 5. Hayden Reinbold (6), 6. Cody Beard (7), 7. Robert Carson (9), 8. Sammy Males (8), 9. Bradley Cox (1). NT
K & N FILTERS THIRD HEAT: (10 laps, top 6 transfer to the feature, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Justin Grant (2), 2. Colton Robinson (1), 3. Brecken Reese (5), 4. Gunnar Setser (4), 5. Kyle Jones (3), 6. Kevin Thomas Jr. (6), 7. Daniel Robinson (8), 8. Chase Hodge (7). 1:45.308
FIVE STAR BODIES SEMI: (12 laps, top 6 transfer to the feature, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Kale Drake (1), 2. Bradley Cox (2), 3. Daniel Robinson (3), 4. Devin Feger (6), 5. Chase Hodge (5), 6. Sammy Males (7), 7. Chris Hartman (8), 8. Robert Carson. 2:12.783 (Track Record)
FEATURE: (40 laps, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Jacob Denney (1), 2. Justin Grant (9), 3. Kevin Thomas Jr. (5), 4. Gavin Miller (7), 5. Karter Sarff (12), 6. Mack Leopard (3), 7. Kyle Jones (14), 8. Ethan Mitchell (10), 9. Jake Neuman (13), 10. Bradley Cox (20), 11. Drew Sherman (15), 12. Colton Robinson (16), 13. Zach Daum (8), 14. Hayden Reinbold (6), 15. Jakeb Boxell (17), 16. Kale Drake (19), 17. Gunnar Setser (11), 18. Devin Feger (22), 19. Chase Hodge (23), 20. Brecken Reese (2), 21. Alex Midkiff (4), 22. Sammy Males (24), 23. Cody Beard (18), 24. Daniel Robinson (21).
