CONCORD, N.C. — The April racing schedule for the Xtreme Outlaw Midget Series presented by Toyota continues with a visit to another track brand-new to the series – Farmer City Raceway for the annual Illini 100.
Standing as one of the most prestigious dirt track racing events in the state of Illinois, the Illini 100 has traditionally been billed as a super late model and DIRTcar UMP Modified event. But this yera, the event welcomes midget racing to the card for the first time, joining the World of Outlaws CASE Construction Equipment Late Model Series and the MARS Modified Championship.
The stars of midget racing’s newest national tour take on the quarter-mile bullring for back-to-back nights of racing this Friday and Saturday, April 12-13. Preceded by an evening of practice on Thursday, April 11, Friday’s program kicks off the racing action with a 25-lap, $4,000-to-win main event, leading up to a 30-lap, $5,000-to-win finale on Saturday.
Both nights will be sanctioned in conjunction with the POWRi National Midget League, marking Rounds 1-2 of competition in the Xtreme Outlaw-POWRi Challenge Series. This 10-race miniseries awards a $2,500 check to the driver with the most points accumulated after all events are complete in addition to checks for each of the drivers in the top-five of final points.
Here are the drivers to watch and storylines to follow this weekend:
HOT STREAK
Through the first four races of 2024, no driver owns more top-five finishes than the current Series points leader, Cannon McIntosh.
The 21-year-old has not finished outside of the top five yet and boasts the win in the season-opening weekend in Du Quoin last month. He led laps in both features last weekend at US 36 Raceway and Sweet Springs Motorsports Complex en route to his second pair of top-five finishes, boosting his lead in the points standings to 47 over Keith Kunz Motorsports teammate Ryan Timms.
Farmer City will be a track brand-new to McIntosh this weekend. The quarter-mile bullring has never hosted a national Midget series event, and the young Oklahoma racer will be among the favorites to become its first winner.
BOUNCE BACK
Zach Daum has climbed back from large points deficits before and now prepares to do it again after a weekend gone bad in Missouri.
A sixth-place finish last Friday at US 36 kept him in the thick of the battle for the points lead but internal mechanical failure struck him early in the program Saturday at Sweet Springs, taking him out of competition and leaving him with his first DNS of the season. That cost him almost 200 points in the standings as he fell from 16 points out of the lead in second-place, down to eighth-place where he now sits 215 points behind McIntosh.
Despite his misfortune, the 32-year-old returns to racing in his home state of Illinois this weekend with a fresh power plant inside the Trifecta Motorsports No. 7U. While he starts a climb back in the Xtreme Outlaw standings, he’ll start fresh with the first race of the Challenge Series with POWRi, of which he was the champion in 2023.
SHARK’S TANK
Karter Sarff is back on the Xtreme Outlaw Series roster for the third weekend in-a-row as he prepares to take on one of his home-state tracks at Farmer City.
Sarff, 21, of Mason City, IL, has made his presence felt early this season, knocking off the series regulars last Friday at US 36 for his third career Xtreme Outlaw win. He followed that up with an eighth-place effort the next night at Sweet Springs, vaulting him up to fourth in the points standings.
Fitting for the first race of the 2024 Xtreme Outlaw-POWRi Challenge Series, Sarff enters Farmer City representing the POWRi side its defending national champion – an honor he clinched in the final race of the season last October.
CHAMP RETURNS
Jade Avedisian returns to the Xtreme Outlaw Series roster this weekend after spending a week on the asphalt in Sonoma, CA, for the opening round of the Toyota GR Cup.
The reigning series champion from Clovis, Calif., will return to the Keith Kunz Motorsports stable for both races in Farmer City following finishes of 14th and fourth in the season opener in Du Quoin last month.
Like most others in the field, Avedisian does not have any laps in a Midget at Farmer City but has been strong on the banked bullrings in the past with wins at Jacksonville Speedway, Southern Illinois Raceway and Federated Auto Parts Raceway at I-55.
BACK IN THE SADDLE
Gavin Miller has healed from surgery and has been cleared to compete this weekend, returning to the seat of the KKM LynK/Toyota No. 97 after missing the past two races.
Miller, 17, of Allentown, Pa., posted finishes of second and 11th in the season opener last month and sat fourth in points – a great start for the championship hopeful. However, a crash in a Micro Sprint event in California two weeks later took him out of action due to an injury suffered in the incident and put teammate Kale Drake in the seat of his No. 97 for races at US 36 and Sweet Springs.
Drake, 18, of Collinsville, Okla., took the opportunity and ran with it, bagging a Heat win and a seventh-place result in the Feature at US 36 before scoring his first national Midget series win with a last-lap pass on teammate Taylor Reimer the next night at Sweet Springs.
While Miller reassumes his normal driving duties in the No. 97, Drake has earned the right for more seat time and will also pilot a KKM car of his own at Farmer City, making seven total KKM cars on the roster this weekend – comprised of himself, Ryan Timms, McIntosh, Luke Drotschie, Ashton Torgerson, Avedisian and Miller.