PARK CITY, Kan. — One year after losing out on victory at 81 Speedway, Cannon McIntosh found redemption and his second win of the season with the Xtreme Outlaw Midget Series presented by Toyota.
McIntosh, 21, led several laps of the feature during the series debut at the three-eighths-mile oval in 2023 but ultimately came up one spot short, giving up the lead in the final laps.
Fast-forward a full calendar year to Saturday night, and the story ended far more different.
McIntosh spent most of the 25-lap main event chasing teammate Ryan Timms for the top spot, but later found himself holding the race lead on a restart with only six laps left when Timms’ left-rear tire blew out, bringing out the caution flag.
McIntosh held strong on the restart, and once more through another restart in green-white-checkered fashion to get redemption and his seventh career Xtreme Outlaw win.
“I was glad to be able to come back here and win after losing it late in the race last year,” McIntosh said. “I thought maybe it was gonna be a broken record again after having those yellows and the green-white-checkered. But I was able to get a good restart and get away.”
Reuniting with KKM – for the first time since 2021 – was a big change for McIntosh this year after spending the past three national Midget seasons driving for his father’s team at Dave Mac-Dalby Motorsports. But the change has produced a positive net effect despite its differences – one that McIntosh has taken notice of.
“We’ve had really good cars every weekend, it’s just been a matter of me adapting and getting used to this thing,” McIntosh said. “It’s just a lot different than our family car. I had to drive it a lot differently.”
Crossing the stripe second was the driver who bested McIntosh at 81 last year – Chase McDermand. This time, the scripts were flipped, and McDermand was forced to come from ninth on the starting grid.
While he was able to secure the runner-up spot in the end, winning a slide job battle with Kale Drake in the final laps, McDermand said starting more forward on the grid would have been the biggest help in getting his first win of the season.
“Just struggled for points and then had to start from the back, so that really handicapped us,” McDermand said. “The car was really good, we had a lot of speed, just took too long to get through the field.”
Oklahoma racer Kale Drake crossed the stripe in third after spending the entire race inside the top five while Gavin Miller and Jade Avedisian rounded out the top five, giving KKM four of the top five finishers.
The finish:
Feature (25 Laps): 1. 71K-Cannon McIntosh[4]; 2. 40-Chase McDermand[9]; 3. 97K-Kale Drake[2]; 4. 97-Gavin Miller[6]; 5. 71-Jade Avedisian[3]; 6. 67K-Ashton Torgerson[10]; 7. 19AZ-Hayden Reinbold[21]; 8. 60X-Kyle Jones[5]; 9. 67-Ryan Timms[1]; 10. 21K-Karter Sarff[8]; 11. 56-Tyler Edwards[14]; 12. 98K-Elijah Gile[16]; 13. 5U-Peter Smith[18]; 14. 7-Shannon McQueen[11]; 15. 7U-Zach Daum[7]; 16. 55-Trevor Cline[13]; 17. 98-Luke Drotschie[17]; 18. 14S-TJ Smith[12]; 19. (DNS) 1K-Brayton Lynch; 20. (DNS) 84S-Shaun Shapel; 21. (DNS) 66-Jayden Clay