PEVELY, Mo. — Karter Sarff’s first win with the Xtreme Outlaw Midget Series presented by Toyota came at Federated Auto Parts Raceway at I-55 last year.
Fast-forward to 2024, and he’s swept the track’s most prestigious event.
Sarff, the 21-year-old racer from Mason City, Ill., led flag-to-flag for the win Friday night and then made it back-to-back trips to victory lane with his fourth series victory Saturday, taking the lead from Ryan Timms late in the race and leading the rest of the way to claim the $7,500 grand prize — the largest winner’s share in series history.
“It’s just super cool, especially with this night paying $7,500 to win,” Sarff said. “Obviously, the Saturday race is the big one to win – I feel like there’s a lot more people here, and the [World of] Outlaws run the Ironman 55.
“It’s just a prestigious race and it’s turning into a prestigious midget race too; just happy to put my name in the record books [and get my] biggest midget win this year so far.”
In seven career starts with the series at I-55, Sarff has won three of them. Saturday’s win, co-sacntioned by the POWRi National Midget League, counted as his fourth of the season with the Xtreme Outlaw Series – second-most only to points leader Cannon McIntosh – and sixth of his career.
The driver known as “The Shark” accomplished the feat all while pulling double duty on both nights of the event, driving his own No. 21k midget and the Chase Briscoe Racing No. 5 sprint car.
“I was already worn out from running the sprint car all night too,” Sarff said. “That was really tiring, and it just seemed non-stop all night long. I was tired before the race even started for the midget feature. I had noodle arms the whole race.”
While Sarff was on top in the end, points leaders Cannon McIntosh and Ryan Timms opened the Feature action. McIntosh led the opening four circuits around the third-mile track before hitting a rut in turn one and coughing-up the top spot to Timms.
Timms took the top spot and began to run with it before a red flag halted the action on lap nine. On the restart, Timms hit a bump in the track entering turn three and gave the lead back to McIntosh, but only for two corners as Timms came right back with a move of his own around the bottom of turns one and two to regain the lead.
“I was so good on the top there before the red and was running Ryan down just that little bit the couple laps I changed my line,” McIntosh, 21, said. “We had the red and just could never fire off the same. I feel like we sat too long.”
Meanwhile, Sarff was working on his push to the head of the field. Sitting third for a restart on lap 17, Sarff threw a slider of his own on McIntosh in turns three and four for the second spot, racing through the middle groove.
“I thought for sure Cannon would rip it through the middle there right in front of me and kinda block it,” Sarff said. “He just went up and I was able to do the same exact thing.”
Now riding second, Sarff got his first look at the lead on a restart three laps later. Timms led the field into turn three after taking the green and jumped a rut again, allowing Sarff to scoot by out of turn four.
Though Timms retook the spot with a slide job in turns one and two, he hit yet another bump in turn one on lap 23 and shot up the track, opening the door for Sarff once more down low to take the lead for good.
“I got to Ryan and got real lucky with him hitting the holes wrong,” Sarff said. “I could just get through them really good; our stuff is usually always good through the rough.”
“I knew the bottom was coming in and I saw the 21 got to second and I knew he’s really good on the bottom here,” Timms said. “I knew he was gonna be there, but I thought as long as I didn’t hop to where it would screw me up too bad and get could get under us, then I’d be fine. Sure enough, that’s what happened.”
Now armed with the race lead, Sarff made quick work of the lapped traffic in front of him and beat Timms to the finish by 1.6 seconds.
McIntosh crossed the stripe in third, re-entering the top-five after his streak of 18 consecutive top-five runs came to a halt with a sixth-place run Friday.
“Good podium finish but still disappointing for leading there at the beginning, losing the lead, getting it back and losing it again,” McIntosh said. “Obviously wanted more when you start on the pole; the only goal is to win.”
Seventh-starting Zach Daum climbed to finish fourth aboard the Trifecta Motorsports No. 7u while Thomas Meseraull drove the Engler Machine & Tool No. 7x to round out the top five.
The finish:
Feature (35 Laps): 1. 21K-Karter Sarff[3]; 2. 67-Ryan Timms[2]; 3. 71K-Cannon McIntosh[1]; 4. 7U-Zach Daum[7]; 5. 7X-Thomas Meseraull[4]; 6. 67K-Ashton Torgerson[16]; 7. 19AZ-Hayden Reinbold[5]; 8. 40-Chase McDermand[23]; 9. 14S-Tyler Edwards[9]; 10. 55-Trevor Cline[11]; 11. 26-Corbin Rueschenberg[12]; 12. 71-Jade Avedisian[10]; 13. 97-Gavin Miller[6]; 14. 98-Gunnar Setser[8]; 15. 50-Daniel Adler[17]; 16. 51B-Joe B Miller[15]; 17. 44-Branigan Roark[21]; 18. 7-Shannon McQueen[20]; 19. 77-Joe Wirth[14]; 20. 66-Jayden Clay[24]; 21. 33-Jacob McFarlin[22]; 22. 72J-Sam Johnson[19]; 23. 5U-Peter Smith[18]; 24. 56D-Mitchell Davis[13]