KUTZTOWN, Pa. — Jacob Denney brought the Wednesday action to Action Track USA.
The Xtreme Outlaw Midget Series presented by Toyota points leader the opening night of Appalachian Midget Week with a dominant run aboard his Keith Kunz/Curb-Agajanian Motorsports n\midget for his seventh win of the season.
Colton Robinson and Michael Faccinto set the front row for the 30-lap feature, with Faccinto taking the early lead at the finish line as Denney took over second place when Robinson had trouble creating his opening-lap momentum.
On Lap 5, Faccinto jumped over the Turn 1 cushion, leaving enough room for Denney to slide around the bottom and take the lead.
After taking the lead, Denney worked atop the cushion to create a 2.4-second gap over the field as Faccinto, Robinson, Cannon McIntosh, and Hayden Wise traded positions around the top five in the first half.
As McIntosh’s Mobil 1 No. 71K charged forward to battle Faccinto for second place, his KKM teammate Gavin Miller was creating a similar charge towards the front after starting the night in 11th place to drive up inside the top five with 10 laps to go.
When McIntosh got fully clear of Faccinto’s No. 5U on Lap 24, he followed Denney around the cushion while the leader’s No. 67 dealt with lapped traffic ahead of him.
Though the reigning Xtreme Outlaw Midgets champion sliced time off of Denney’s lead, he did not have enough of a distance to attempt a race-winning move as the Galloway, Ohio, driver captured his seventh series win to boost his points lead over McIntosh to 159 points.
Denney’s win created the newest single-season series win record, breaking McIntosh’s six-win record from 2024.
“I was pacing Michael there, and he was running a really fast pace,” Denney said. “I had to step it up a little bit, and I figured out at about Lap 3, I had enough stick, and I could kind of just run below the cushion, hit it on exit, and get back going again.
“So, I think that was the key tonight instead of getting tripped up every lap on the cushion. That’s just a testament to having a great car every night.”
McIntosh finished the night in second at Action Track, adding his 10th top-five in the last 11 features to start his run of the Appalachian Midget Week.
“It’s tough, especially when it’s as fast-paced as it was tonight,” McIntosh said. “It was hard to make moves on guys, slicing and dicing most of the race. It was really hard for that second spot for a while. It felt like we had a really good piece. It was a matter of getting clear of those guys, and once we got into second and got clean air, I felt like we definitely ran him down, just ran out of time.”
Miller parked his No. 97 SoundGear Toyota in third place to complete his hard-working night in Kutztown.
“Obviously, starting a little deep in the field hurt us,” Miller said. “The track’s really small, and it turned out there was two lanes to race, so you could get around and cut down. I thought the track was pretty good for how heavy it was to begin.
“Definitely a little hard getting by some of those guys who were train tracking around the top. Then, just got to be smart and race as realistically as we could to get back. Ultimately, it turned out to be really good tonight, I wish I started up front and not have all that work to get up there. But nonetheless, it was fun doing it.”
The finish:
Feature (30 Laps): 1. 67-Jacob Denney[3]; 2. 71K-Cannon McIntosh[7]; 3. 97-Gavin Miller[11]; 4. 5U-Michael Faccinto[2]; 5. 94-Hayden Wise[6]; 6. 67K-Colton Robinson[1]; 7. 55-Trevor Cline[5]; 8. 7U-Kale Drake[8]; 9. 72-Alex Karpowicz[4]; 10. 7X-Kyle Jones[14]; 11. 40-Chase McDermand[18]; 12. 19M-Ethan Mitchell[12]; 13. 98K-Brandon Carr[10]; 14. 9U-Kameron Key[16]; 15. X-Daniel Bennett[9]; 16. 11-Eric Heydenreich[20]; 17. 21K-Cord Kisthardt[17]; 18. 7G-Jimmy Glenn[21]; 19. 25-Steve Buckwalter[13]; 20. 29-Jason Bennett[15]; 21. 5-PJ Gargiulo[19]; 22. 25B-Ryan Roulette[22]
