BRANDON, S.D. — Cannon McIntosh led the final 37 laps of Sunday night’s 100-lap Huset’s Speedway USAC Nationals midget feature to earn a healthy payday.
McIntosh became the fourth and final leader, advancing past Jacob Denney on lap 64 en route to capturing the longest victory of his career in his Dave Mac Dalby Motorsports/Crescent Tools – GearWrench – DriveWFX/Spike/Speedway Toyota.
Additionally, McIntosh accumulated the most overall points in midget competition throughout the entirety of the weekend at the third-mile dirt oval, which made for a grand total payday of $22,000 with $12,000 allotted for the feature victory and an extra $10,000 going toward the points crown.
“I’m stoked right now,” McIntosh exclaimed following his second USAC NOS Energy Drink Midget National Championship feature victory of the season. “To be standing in victory lane and winning the points deal as well after our finish here last year, this is just awesome.”
Last year, McIntosh was in position to win at Huset’s when his car suffered a flat tire.
An eight-car invert based on the cumulative weekend points placed Denney on the pole for the long-distance runaround and McIntosh in position seven where he bided his team in the early stages before finding his footing.
“Early in the race, we weren’t that great,” McIntosh admitted. “I was just kind of maintaining there early and I didn’t want to put myself in a bad spot and take us out of the fight. As the race went on and on, at the halfway break, we made a lot of changes, and I was able to do more of what I wanted to do after the halfway point. That was huge.”
Front row combatants Denney and Justin Grant waged an early-race side-by-side battle which saw Denney control the first two circuits before Grant swept around the outside in turns three and four to assume the lead on lap three.
Just behind and charging was Buddy Kofoid, the odds-on favorite who had already picked his way from eighth to third by lap nine after winning the feature event on each of the first two nights of midget racing at the USAC Nationals. However, quite unexpectedly, Kofoid entered above the turn one cushion, banged the right rear off the outside wall and was sent into a flip.
Kofoid’s incident was the first of four massive crashes that all transpired within the first half of the event. Jade Avedisian flipped in turn two in a big way on lap 41. Taylor Reimer received some major airtime as she flipped sky high into the catchfence.
That incident initiated the scheduled eight-minute red-flag break for the field to add fuel and make adjustments to their cars. However, when action resumed, it didn’t resume for long. In turn one on the lap-45 restart, McIntosh’s attempted slide job for second place wound up with his right rear contacting Grant’s left-front wheel, promptly launching Grant into orbit as he flipped wildly alongside the outside wall.
“I feel terrible with what happened between Justin and I,” McIntosh stated. “He kind of got loose or something on the restart and I just dove it in. I felt like I had a good run and I thought I had him cleared. I never want to drive somebody like that, and I hate to do it to Justin like that.”
Grant had lost the lead to Denney on lap 44.
However, McIntosh was undeniably just finding and getting comfortable with his sweet spot as he slid Denney repeatedly in turn three on laps 58, 59, 60, 62 and 63, but each time, Denney crossed over without panic to ascend back to the lead. Yet lap 64 was a different story as McIntosh dove to the bottom of turn three, slide up to the top and crowded Denney’s line, forcing him to back off the throttle and taking over the position.
“When I got to Denney, it was kind of hard to make a move on him because he was running a different line and he was able to come off a little bit better than me when I’d slide him,” McIntosh explained of his pursuit.
McIntosh motored away into lapped traffic.
“It started to get tricky there when I got to traffic,” McIntosh revealed. “I couldn’t really tell where to run in one and two and I couldn’t figure it out. I knew I wasn’t really catching them that fast, so I knew we were doing something wrong. On that last restart, I made a little bit of a change, and it seemed to work.”
The restart came with eight laps to go when second-running Brady Bacon slowed dramatically on the cushion between turns one and two. Third-running Shane Golobic got into the rear bumper of Bacon, resulting in Bacon spinning to a stop while also collecting fifth-running Bryant Wiedeman.
Down the stretch, Golobic reined in McIntosh to within three car lengths but that was as close as it got as McIntosh won by .85 seconds over Golobic. Logan Seavey, Zach Daum and Denney completed the top five.
Golobic recorded his best USAC National Midget feature result since the 2017 4-Crown Nationals at Ohio’s Eldora Speedway.
It was an eventful Sunday for eavey who said he didn’t know he wasn’t going to be racing until just a few hours before hot laps when he and the Tom Malloy team parted ways.
Seavey walked through the pits and ended up at the Reinbold-Underwood Motorsports rig where the team pulled down a second car for the 2018 USAC National Midget champion who responded by racing from 14th to finish third.
USAC NOS Energy Drink Midget National Championship, Huset’s Speedway, Brandon, S.D., July 10, 2022
SIMPSON RACE PRODUCTS FIRST QUALIFYING RACE: (10 laps, all transfer to the feature) 1. Chase McDermand (#40 Mounce-Stout), 2. Taylor Reimer (#25K Kunz/Curb-Agajanian), 3. Brenham Crouch (#97 Kunz/Curb-Agajanian), 4. Zach Daum (#9m Bundy Built), 5. Buddy Kofoid (#67 Kunz/Curb-Agajanian), 6. Justin Grant (#2J RMS), 7. Jade Avedisian (#84 BCI), 8. Cade Lewis (#71m Kunz/Curb-Agajanian), 9. Alex Schriever (#0T Davis). 2:10.61 (New Track Record)
COMPETITION SUSPENSION (CSI) SECOND QUALIFYING RACE: (10 laps, all transfer to the feature) 1. Ethan Mitchell (#19m Bundy Built), 2. Mitchel Moles (#89 BCI), 3. Maria Cofer (#57 Abacus), 4. Kaylee Bryson (#71 Kunz/Curb-Agajanian), 5. Bryant Wiedeman (#01 Kunz/Curb-Agajanian), 6. Cannon McIntosh (#08 Dave Mac), 7. Chance Crum (#26 Rudeen), 8. Blake Brannon (#40B Western Speed), 9. Jody Rosenboom (#14x Rosenboom). 2:10.84
PIT STOP USA & ROD END SUPPLY THIRD QUALIFYING RACE: (10 laps, all transfer to the feature) 1. Trey Gropp (#08x Dave Mac), 2. Logan Seavey (#19 Reinbold-Underwood), 3. Jacob Denney (#61 Mounce-Stout), 4. Hayden Reinbold (#19AZ Reinbold-Underwood), 5. Shane Golobic (#17w Wood), 6. Thomas Meseraull (#7x RMS), 7. Brady Bacon (#21H TKH), 8. Jace Park (#87 BCI). 2:12.38
FEATURE: (100 laps, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Cannon McIntosh (7), 2. Shane Golobic (11), 3. Logan Seavey (14), 4. Zach Daum (13), 5. Jacob Denney (1), 6. Brenham Crouch (5), 7. Mitchel Moles (10), 8. Chance Crum (9), 9. Kaylee Bryson (15), 10. Chase McDermand (16), 11. Brady Bacon (3), 12. Jade Avedisian (21), 13. Bryant Wiedeman (6), 14. Thomas Meseraull (4), 15. Cade Lewis (25), 16. Maria Cofer (18), 17. Jace Park (19), 18. Alex Schriever (24), 19. Trey Gropp (20), 20. Ethan Mitchell (17), 21. Justin Grant (2), 22. Taylor Reimer (12), 23. Blake Brannon (23), 24. Hayden Reinbold (22), 25. Jody Rosenboom (26), 26. Buddy Kofoid (8).