BELOIT, Kan. — Jacob Denney was more than ready for a change of pace entering Wednesday night’s 15th running of the Chad McDaniel Memorial at Mitchell County Fairgrounds Raceway in Beloit, Kansas.
Throughout the initial 10 events of the 2026 USAC NOS Energy Drink Midget National Championship, the Galloway, Ohio, native had accumulated an average feature starting position of 12.8. Despite that fact, he’s managed to tally an average finishing position of sixth!
In fact, only once this season had Denney started better than eighth, and he just so happened to win that particular one at Kokomo back in April.
This time around, however, he put a complete night together from start to finish by qualifying fourth before scoring second in his heat race, then advancing from third to first in the feature to earn his second series victory of the year at round two of USAC Mid-America Midget Week.
Needless to say, it was a welcome change for the series point leader who’s in pursuit of his first career USAC National Midget driving title.
“It’s really nice,” Denney stated. “I’ve been starting like 15th or worse every night. So, I’ve had to pass a lot of cars. To actually qualify good for once, it’s nice. It makes your race a lot easier. You can pace yourself and try some different things. When you have a good enough car to move around like that, it makes it a lot nicer too.”
Initially, Denney fell back to fourth in the opening laps of the 30-lap feature, but soon, he had his Keith Kunz-Curb-Agajanian Motorsports/JBL Audio – TRD – Mobil 1 – Curb/LynK/Speedway Toyota rolling.
Denney traveled topside around teammate Cannon McIntosh in the fourth turn on lap six to slot into third. On the 11th lap, he slid Brecken Reese for the runner-up spot in the third turn, then went to work on tracking down leader Kale Drake who had paced the first half of the event.
Quickly erasing a half second deficit, Denney swept past Drake for the lead on the back straightaway on lap 16 and then nipped Drake at the stripe by a single car length. Drake fought back with a turn one slide job on lap 17 that allowed him to lead down the back stretch and into turn three. But Denney remained patient, opting to roll the bottom through turns three and four rather than firing off a slider across the nose of Drake. It worked.
After completing the pass for the lead on laps 16 and 17, Denney had to endure three separate restarts down the stretch due to cautions for stoppages by Gaige Weldon (19th), Kyle Jones (13th), and Drew Sherman (19th). Each time, Denney was able to pick up where he left off, despite not feeling the most comfortable at times but acclimating himself on the fly.
“I didn’t feel very good anywhere, but I started doing some different stuff and I could make more speed down the straightaways. I just kept changing some stuff up, changing my restarts up, and kept telling myself to shut up under caution because you start getting in your own head.”
McIntosh posed a bit of a challenge down the stretch as he got to second underneath Drake in turns three and four on lap 22 to get the spot, then was set up behind Denney for multiple restarts late in the going.
On the final lap, the battle for third got serious, and nearly wound up downright catastrophic for Justin Grant. With Drake inside and Grant to his outside, the two collided on the front straightaway, just underneath the flag stand, which levitated Grant a bit airborne before landing on all fours and continuing on.
All the while, Denney had things under control up front and put a wrap on the victory by a 1.118 second margin, which helped extend his USAC National Midget point lead to 22. McIntosh took second for the second night in a row with Drake third, Grant fourth and Jakeb Boxell working up from his 11th starting spot to finish fifth.
USAC NOS Energy Drink Midget National Championship, Mitchell County Fairgrounds Raceway, Beloit, Kansas, July 8, 2026
LEARNLAB QUALIFYING: 1. Drake Edwards, 40D, McDermand-12.238; 2. Kevin Thomas Jr., 14, 4 Kings-12.239; 3. Brecken Reese, 20Q, Reese-12.364; 4. Jacob Denney, 67, Kunz/Curb-Agajanian-12.414; 5. Kale Drake, 4, RMS-12.453; 6. Cannon McIntosh, 71K, Kunz/Curb-Agajanian-12.522; 7. Hayden Reinbold, 19AZ, Reinbold-Underwood-12.534; 8. Gavin Miller, 97, Kunz/Curb-Agajanian-12.564; 9. Jakeb Boxell, 54, 4 Kings-12.591; 10. Mack Leopard, 40L, McDermand-12.614; 11. Cale Coons, 85, Central-12.646; 12. Colton Robinson, 67K, Kunz/Curb-Agajanian-12.683; 13. Drew Sherman, 19, Reinbold/Underwood-12.684; 14. Kyle Jones, 27x, Joyner-12.690; 15. Justin Grant, 87, CBI-12.726; 16. Garrett Benson, 27B, Bourke-12.762; 17. Bradley Cox, 45, Mason-12.766; 18. Ethan Mitchell, 19m, Bundy Built-12.848; 19. Gaige Weldon, 35L, Ledger-12.865; 20. Matt Sherrell, 21AJ, Huddleston-12.890; 21. Adam Trimble, 5D, Matejka/Heffner-12.959; 22. Jeff Stasa, 91, Stasa-12.984; 23. Trey Zorn, 00, Chandler-12.999; 24. Zack Merritt, 43m, RKO-13.050; 25. Shyla Ernst, 42, RKO-13.259; 26. Brandon Carr, 98K, Kunz/Curb-Agajanian-13.425; 27. Mikey Blackard, 71, Henry/Hamilton-13.450; 28. Blaze Bennett, 10B, Bennett-13.612; 29. Lance Bennett, 44x, RKO-14.132; 30. Dylan Doyle, 37, Doyle-14.348; 31. Caiden Warren, 12w, Warren-NT.
K1 RACEGEAR FIRST HEAT: (8 laps, top 5 transfer to the feature, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Kale Drake (5), 2. Bradley Cox (2), 3. Jakeb Boxell (4), 4. Drake Edwards (6), 5. Adam Trimble (1), 6. Drew Sherman (3), 7. Lance Bennett (8), 8. Shyla Ernst (7). 1:44.862
TJ FORGED SECOND HEAT: (8 laps, top 5 transfer to the feature, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Ethan Mitchell (2), 2. Mack Leopard (4), 3. Cannon McIntosh (5), 4. Kyle Jones (3), 5. Kevin Thomas Jr. (6), 6. Brandon Carr (7), 7. Jeff Stasa (1), 8. Dylan Doyle (8). 1:45.603
K & N FILTERS THIRD HEAT: (8 laps, top 5 transfer to the feature, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Justin Grant (3), 2. Hayden Reinbold (5), 3. Cale Coons (4), 4. Brecken Reese (6), 5. Trey Zorn (1), 6. Gaige Weldon (2), 7. Caiden Warren (8), 8. Mikey Blackard (7). 1:43.367 (New Track Record)
INDY POWERSPORTS FOURTH HEAT: (8 laps, top 5 transfer to the feature, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Gavin Miller (5), 2. Jacob Denney (6), 3. Garrett Benson (3), 4. Matt Sherrell (2), 5. Colton Robinson (4), 6. Zack Merritt (1), 7. Blaze Bennett (7). 1:46.211
FIVE STAR BODIES SEMI: (12 laps, top 4 transfer to the feature, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Brandon Carr (4), 2. Drew Sherman (1), 3. Gaige Weldon (2), 4. Zack Merritt (3), 5. Jeff Stasa (5), 6. Caiden Warren (8), 7. Lance Bennett (7), 8. Mikey Blackard (10), 9. Blaze Bennett (6), 10. Dylan Doyle (11), 11. Shyla Ernst (9). 2:42.162
FEATURE: (30 laps, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Jacob Denney (3), 2. Cannon McIntosh (1), 3. Kale Drake (2), 4. Justin Grant (8), 5. Jakeb Boxell (11), 6. Brecken Reese (4), 7. Kevin Thomas Jr. (5), 8. Hayden Reinbold (10), 9. Gavin Miller (7), 10. Matt Sherrell (20), 11. Garrett Benson (17), 12. Colton Robinson (14), 13. Drake Edwards (6), 14. Ethan Mitchell (9), 15. Bradley Cox (18), 16. Mack Leopard (12), 17. Cale Coons (13), 18. Brandon Carr (24), 19. Trey Zorn (22), 20. Kyle Jones (16), 21. Gaige Weldon (19), 22. Drew Sherman (15), 23. Adam Trimble (21), 24. Zack Merritt (23).
