DAVENPORT, Iowa — Three years at the controls of a dirt midget, racing against the best in the sport, has brought Taylor Reimer a new opportunity this year.
Before venturing to Davenport Speedway for the My Place Hotels Quad Cities 150, Aug. 24-26, the 23-year-old Oklahoman will make her ARCA Menards Series debut this Sunday, Aug. 20. She’ll pilot the BuzzBallz-sponsored Toyota Camry for Venturini Motorsports at the Illinois State Fairgrounds in Springfield, Ill.
Despite a career spent mostly on the dirt, Reimer has welcomed the new challenge with open arms as she strives to take her motorsports career to new heights.
“I’m definitely excited; I think it’ll be something different,” Reimer said. “I’ve never really done asphalt, except go-karts when I was like six years old. But I’ve tested a late model, and it’s a lot of fun. It’s definitely different. Looking forward to learning and trying something new.”
Reimer joined the championship chase on the Xtreme Outlaw Midget Series presented by Toyota this year in her second full-time season for Keith Kunz Motorsports.
Since becoming a pioneer in the sport as the first-ever female to win a national dirt midget race (Millbridge Speedway, 2022), Reimer has collected nine top-five finishes and 13 top 10s in 19 starts this year with the series — currently on a run of nine top 10s in a row — and sits sixth in points.
She made the move to Mooresville, N.C., before the start of the season and began working more directly with the staff at Toyota Racing Development, which later presented her with the ARCA opportunity — something she said has been in her future plans since resuming her driving career post-college graduation.
“Ultimately, yes, this is the goal,” Reimer said. “I’m looking to, hopefully, do five-to-eight [ARCA races] next year along with the full Xtreme Outlaw Series. Just doing that along with a couple late model races locally around North Carolina, just to keep getting my feet wet in different areas of motorsports.”
Reimer’s motorsports adventure started in go-karts before rising through the ranks of micro sprints and JR Sprints. At 14 years old, she took about a seven year break from racing, finishing out high school and then went to college at the University of Oklahoma, where she earned a degree in health and exercise science.
She found her way back into racing at 21 years old, joining the dirt midget ranks with Dave Mac Motorsports.
After a year there, she made the move to her current home at Keith Kunz Motorsports. In her Xtreme Outlaw career — all with KKM — Reimer has collected one win, 10 top-five finishes and 19 top 10s in 28 starts.
“They’ve been a great help; I love working with Keith Kunz Motorsports,” Reimer said. “They’re an awesome team, and I don’t think I’d be where I am without them.”
At the beginning of the season, Reimer’s results were a mixed bag of top 10s and finishes in the teens. But since Doe Run Raceway in July, she hasn’t finished worse than sixth and has collected eight top fives in the last nine races.
“Toward the beginning of the year, the first couple races were really tough,” Reimer said. “Early on, we struggled, and I think my confidence was low. Over the past couple months, I’ve been just trying to build my confidence back up and know that I can race with each one of these people, and I can beat them.”
She’ll now try to carry that momentum into her ARCA debut before jumping back behind the wheel of her KKM No. 25K Midget at Davenport Speedway with the Xtreme Outlaw Midgets.