JACKSONVILLE, Ill. — Speed. Slider. Crash. Checkered. Friday’s Xtreme Outlaw Midget Series feature at Jacksonville Speedway had a finish like none other in 2024.
When race leader Ryan Timms and teammate Gavin Miller tangled and crashed into the inside wall in the final corner on the last lap, Zach Daum was there to capitalize. Daum slipped past both drivers to claim his second career victory at the quarter-mile dirt track.
“Honestly, when I came around, obviously I was happy, but I just felt really bad for Ryan because I felt like he drove a really good race,” Daum said. “He kinda deserved to win that.”
Daum’s second win of the season was his first trip to victory lane since May, when he and Trifecta Motorsports won at Millbridge Speedway. The $4,000 score marked the Oklahoma-based team’s seventh career Xtreme Outlaw Series win — all seven of which have come with Daum in the seat since the dawning of their long-term partnership in June of last year.
“We’re back on the right path of where we should’ve been all year,” Daum said. “We kinda got off-track there searching for stuff, and now we’re back to how we were last year. Hopefully, we can just maintain that.”
While Timms established himself as the most dominant car throughout the first half of the main event — expanding his lead out to over four-and-a-half seconds at its largest — Daum and teammate Kameron Key battled side-by-side through the halfway point of the race.
Key and series points leader Cannon McIntosh later collided battling for position on lap 19, sending McIntosh into a single rollover and Key to the pits with a flat tire, but both recovered to finish 13th and 14th, respectively.
On the ensuing restart, Timms took off and created a slight gap between himself and Daum, with his Keith Kunz/Curb-Agajanian Motorsports teammate Miller right behind in third place.
With Miller on the high side and Daum rolling the bottom lane, the two closed the gap to Timms and with the white flag in the air, both were in a position to make a move for the lead in the final corners.
“When I saw the white, I was thinking about either sliding myself or running the bottom or diamonding or something in (Turns) 3 and 4,” Timms, 18, of Oklahoma City said. “But I figured I’d just keep doing what I was doing. I thought Zach was in second, and I’ve been in that situation with him. He’s not the guy to throw a Hail Mary, so I was expecting to go in 3 and 4 and just coast through there and take the checkered.”
Miller got the best run off Turn 2, zooming past Daum on the bottom to take second and charged into Turn 3 with great speed. While Timms rode the high side through Turn 3, Miller used his momentum to make one last-ditch effort for the lead, sliding up in front of Timms with a big slide-job as they rounded the corner.
“Gavin actually pulled alongside of me one lap before that on the outside, so I kinda figured he was diamonding or somehow carrying more speed through there than I was and then was getting the run down the straightaway,” Daum said. “I beat him off of (Turn) 4 and I didn’t hear him into 1 and then he set me up to come off of 2, but he was so low down the straightaway that I didn’t know where he was going. He got to Turn 3, and I don’t think he knew where he was going.”
Though Miller’s car executed the pass without contact, a big rebound off the cushion pitched his car back down toward the bottom of the track, right into the path of Timms. The two collided and spun into the jersey barriers in the infield as Daum snuck by underneath both of them to take the lead and the win on the final lap.
“Whenever I went to try slide and hit the cushion, I kinda ramped up on it, so it kinda shot my car down the track,” Miller said. “Ryan wasn’t doing anything wrong, just trying to cross me back overusing the middle and I’m already coming down because the way the cushion is here, you can’t blow it in like that.”
In the end, Timms was scored with a 15th-place finish. A podium finish would have likely meant a large points gain in the championship standings after McIntosh’s incident, but now his gap has expanded to 139 points with only one race left.
“I can’t say I wouldn’t have done the exact same thing Gavin did,” Timms said. “If this was a night 10 races ago, I probably wouldn’t be so torn up about it. It sucks; I’d say that pretty much takes me out of the championship.”
Fellow Illinois racer and track record holder Chase McDermand crossed the finish in second while Indiana-native Rylan Gray scored his first career national midget series podium with a third-place finish.
Joe B. Miller came home fourth after starting 17th, and Karter Sarff completed the top five.
The finish
Feature (25 Laps): 1. 7U-Zach Daum[6]; 2. 40-Chase McDermand[1]; 3. 87-Rylan Gray[8]; 4. 51B-Joe B Miller[17]; 5. 21K-Karter Sarff[9]; 6. 19AZ-Hayden Reinbold[2]; 7. 68-Jacob Denney[10]; 8. 67K-Ashton Torgerson[14]; 9. 14S-Tyler Edwards[11]; 10. 55-Trevor Cline[12]; 11. 98-Gunnar Setser[21]; 12. 26-Corbin Rueschenberg[13]; 13. 71K-Cannon McIntosh[7]; 14. 5U-Kameron Key[3]; 15. 67-Ryan Timms[4]; 16. 97-Gavin Miller[5]; 17. 3N-Jake Neuman[15]; 18. 50-Daniel Adler[20]; 19. 7X-Thomas Meseraull[18]; 20. 83-Will Armitage[16]; 21. 19M-Ethan Mitchell[19]; 22. 66-Jayden Clay[22]