BILLINGS, Mon. — Whether it’s weekly competition on Sunday nights, national 360 sprint car races or the biggest crown jewel event in all of dirt track motorsports, Ryan Timms has made a habit out of dominating races as of late.
Two weeks removed from the biggest win of his young career in the 64th running of the Knoxville Nationals, the 18-year-old from Oklahoma City, made his first trip to Big Sky Speedway with the Liebig Motorsports No. 10 crew and dominated Friday’s preliminary feature.
Timms led every lap of on opening night of the Harvey Ostermiller Memorial for his eighth career victory with the American Sprint Car Series.
At Knoxville, he reigned supreme over the best 410 sprint car drivers in the world, leading all 50 circuits in the famed event. Eight days later, he led every lap of the Feature in 410 competition at Huset’s Speedway.
Friday night at Big Sky, he led all 25 laps in the ASCS Frontier Region co-sanctioned event and conquered the best in 360 competition for his third flag-to-flag win in his last four starts.
“It had a lot more banking than I was expecting and it was a little bit more of a bullring than I was expecting, so I was pleased when I first got here and saw it,” Timms said. “You look around and there’s just nothing around. It’s definitely a unique place, but it puts on phenomenal racing, so definitely a fun time here.”
After a win in the dash, Timms took off with the lead from the pole in the feature and quickly began creating a gap between himself and Seth Bergman in second.
Though a few caution periods erased his advantage, none of Timms’ opponents came close enough to make a serious bid for the lead as he charged through traffic in the second half of the race.
“Traffic tonight was pretty around-the-bottom,” Timms said. “You could run the top to get around lapped cars, and that’s what I was having to do. I don’t know if it’s the no-wall that kinds throws me off, but it gets tough to see the cushion up there, kinda easy to get over it and misjudge it.”
Even with the reigning national Series champion on his tail for most of the restarts, Timms never faultered, taking off at the drop of the green flag and leaving the nation’s best 360 sprint car racers behind as he cruised to the $4,000 score.
“I wasn’t super worried until I got to lapped traffic,” Timms said. “I was pretty confident that I wasn’t gonna get passed on the top, as long as I was running the bottom.”
Bergman crossed the finish line over four-and-a-half seconds behind Timms in second place.
“I started bringing [Timms] in there once, under that longer green-flag run; he was starting to move around, and I was rolling the bottom and got to him,” Bergman said. “I thought, ‘Hey, I might have something here,’ and then a couple of lapped cars really kinda messed me up and broke my rhythm. By the time I got clear of them, I looked up there and he had set sail and was gone. That was all she wrote for us. But a really good night after a long season of struggling.”
Montana’s Trever Kirkland completed the podium, starting third and finishing third.
“I’ve got to thank Jerry and Jen [Brey] for putting this on; this is awesome to bring [the ASCS National Tour] here, and recognize a legend in Montana racing, Harvey Ostermiller,” he said. “I think is an awesome tribute to a guy that built this facility originally, and we’re happy to be on the podium here.”
Two-time series champion Blake Hahn charged from ninth on the starting grid to finish fourth, while two-time and defending Frontier Region champion Kelly Miller completed the top five.
The finish:
Feature (25 Laps): 1. 10T-Ryan Timms[1]; 2. 23-Seth Bergman[2]; 3. 37-Trever Kirkland[3]; 4. 52-Blake Hahn[9]; 5. 2JR-Kelly Miller[16]; 6. 27B-Jake Bubak[5]; 7. 36-Jason Martin[10]; 8. 45X-Kyler Johnson[7]; 9. 95-Matt Covington[14]; 10. 4L-Lane Taylor[21]; 11. 88R-Ryder Laplante[18]; 12. 28-Joe Perry[11]; 13. 15H-Sam Hafertepe Jr[17]; 14. 72-Phil Dietz[15]; 15. 88C-Brogan Carder[24]; 16. 2B-Garrett Benson[22]; 17. 23N-Garen Linder[12]; 18. 71-Brady Baker[13]; 19. 71T-Christopher Townsend[20]; 20. 88-Terry Easum[23]; 21. 16G-Austyn Gossel[8]; 22. 24M-Ian Myers[25]; 23. 2J-Zach Blurton[4]; 24. 01-Rich Bailey[19]; 25. 12H-Elijah Gile[6]
