KOKOMO, Ind. — Over the course of Jacob Denney’s past two USAC NOS Energy Drink Midget National Championship feature starts at Indiana’s Kokomo Speedway, he passed 32 cars.
There was his 17th to 1st performance in June of 2025, and another plus-16 run from 19th to third during this past Saturday night’s series season opener.
However, during Sunday night’s 8th Kokomo Grand Prix finale, Denney’s outside front row starting position didn’t necessitate such hustle and bustle through traffic.
Instead, the Galloway, Ohio driver took over the lead on lap three and was never headed for the remaining 28 laps aboard his Keith Kunz-Curb-Agajanian Motorsports/JBL Audio – TRD – Mobil 1 – Curb/LynK/Speedway Toyota.
To top it all off, Denney’s latest victory came in his 100th career USAC National Midget feature start. Of his seven career series victories, three have now come at Kokomo’s quarter-mile dirt oval within the past calendar year, his first of the batch coming 365 days ago on the dot.
“This one’s pretty special,” Denney beamed. “I knew we had the car yesterday to get it done but we had a tire blow in the heat race that set us back. It could’ve ended up way worse from where we started, but we made a lot of positions up, so I knew we had great car speed.”
It was Denney’s seventh career victory.
While Denney didn’t have to face the challenge of having to pass more than three quarters of the field in a 30-lap span on this night, he did have to use precision in every maneuver he made while contesting for the early lead and working through traffic throughout the rest of the feature.
Denney outlined the character of the track, which had snuck up and bit several drivers on a night when six different wheelmen got upside down: Thomas Meseraull, Colton Robinson, and Trevor Cline during qualifying, plus Tyler Watkins and Kyle Jones in their respective heat races as well as Drake Edwards in the feature.
“Tonight, I was trying to do something different and not blast through the holes until I really had to,” Denney explained. “Every lap here, it changes on the bottom. One lap, there was no hole, and then one lap later, I went down into one and about turned it over.”
Very nearly, Denney almost became a victim of the same circumstance as the others in the main event. But he had an altered plan of attack.
“Every time I found a hole, I tried moving up a little bit more, then came back across,” Denney shared. “I didn’t want to hit a hole, get tight and miss the bottom coming off of turn four because, unless you’re running the top or all the way down on the (infield) tires, there’s really nothing else to hit. I tried moving all around to miss the holes. I hit them sometimes, but I had a car to navigate really well and that’s what you’ve got to have on tracks like this.”
Denney’s teammate, Gavin Miller, led the opening pair of laps after starting on the pole position. That said, Denney had already made his presence felt just before he took over the lead. On lap two, Denney slid by Miller in turns three and four. Miller answered for the time being by slicing back under to reoccupy the spot.
Moments later, Denney slipped his car under Miller’s entering turn one, then immediately ran off with the race, and the lead, in his hands.
Having the lead is certainly advantageous in most situations, but in this case, it had the double benefit of also allowing Denney to maneuver around and search the track surface on his own rather than being caught embedded in the pack.
“I about had (Miller) down the back straightaway, but then he washed up,” Denney recalled. “After that, I was trying to slide him to see if there was anything else out there because, on the first couple of laps, nobody really knows where to go. You’re always kind of guessing. I tried to see if those marbles were good down through there, if I had to keep racing them. But it just wasn’t very good and he got me back. Then I stuck with what got me there at the end.”
By the midway point, Denney was up on Miller by nearly a half-straightaway. But on lap 18, that’s when Denney did his best Major Taylor and Fausto Coppi impression, as he dug his right rear tire into an unfriendly portion of the surface, which sent him on “the bike” with only two of his four wheels remaining grounded. Denney, however, motored on after resuming on all four wheels, eventually.
Denney lost a chunk of his lead with the brief mishap, but just a few ticks later, Drake Edwards and Kale Drake hooked chrome entering turn three. Edwards subsequently spun sideways, then flipped upside down. Drake, meanwhile, continued and finished the race sixth after starting 16th.
During the second half, Denney was unflappable as he prevailed by 1.127 seconds over Miller, while Kevin Thomas Jr. took third. Saturday night Kokomo Grand Prix winner Justin Grant crossed the line in fourth and Jakeb Boxell rounded out the top five for the second consecutive evening.
USAC NOS Energy Drink Midget National Championship, Kokomo Speedway, Kokomo, Indiana, April 26, 2026
LEARNLAB QUALIFYING: 1. Jakeb Boxell, 54, 4 Kings-12.907; 2. Hayden Reinbold, 19AZ, Reinbold-Underwood-13.225; 3. Ethan Mitchell, 19m, Bundy Built-13.318; 4. Kevin Thomas Jr., 14, 4 Kings-13.320; 5. Jacob Denney, 67, Kunz/Curb-Agajanian-13.326; 6. Gavin Miller, 97, Kunz/Curb-Agajanian-13.326; 7. Mack Leopard, 14L, McDermand-13.331; 8. Logan Seavey, 57, Abacus-13.360; 9. Drake Edwards, 40D, McDermand-13.361; 10. Zach Wigal, 18, O’Dell-13.381; 11. Gunnar Setser, 43, Arnold-13.448; 12. Justin Grant, 87, CBI-13.451; 13. Colton Robinson, 67K, Kunz/Curb-Agajanian-13.530; 14. Brecken Reese, 20Q, Reese-13.541; 15. Thomas Meseraull, 7x, Engler-13.547; 16. Kyle Jones, 7TX, Engler-13.558; 17. Rylan Gray, 81G, Gray-13.565; 18. Adam Taylor, 7T, ATM-13.595; 19. Brandon Carr, 98K, Kunz/Curb-Agajanian-13.627; 20. Trevor Cline, 55, Cline-13.627; 21. Kale Drake, 4, RMS-13.674; 22. Hayden Wise, 94, Ninety-Four-13.678; 23. Chelby Hinton, 4B, Klatt-13.693; 24. Tony Helton, 22H, Gray-14.588; 25. Bradley Cox, 45, Mason-NT; 26. Tyler Watkins, 7, Watkins-NT.
K1 RACEGEAR FIRST HEAT: (10 laps, all transfer to the feature, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Kevin Thomas Jr (5), 2. Rylan Gray (1), 3. Jakeb Boxell (6), 4. Zach Wigal (3), 5. Colton Robinson (2), 6. Chelby Hinton (8), 7. Mack Leopard (4), 8. Tyler Watkins (9). NT
TJ FORGED SECOND HEAT: (10 laps, all transfer to the feature, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Jacob Denney (5), 2. Brecken Reese (2), 3. Gunnar Setser (3), 4. Kale Drake (7), 5. Hayden Reinbold (6), 6. Adam Taylor (1), 7. Tony Helton (8), 8. Logan Seavey (4). NT
K & N FILTERS THIRD HEAT: (10 laps, all transfer to the feature, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Justin Grant (3), 2. Drake Edwards (4), 3. Gavin Miller (5), 4. Brandon Carr (1), 5. Ethan Mitchell (6), 6. Hayden Wise (7), 7. Bradley Cox (8), 8. Kyle Jones (2). NT
FEATURE: (30 laps, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Jacob Denney (2), 2. Gavin Miller (1), 3. Kevin Thomas Jr. (3), 4. Justin Grant (7), 5. Jakeb Boxell (6), 6. Kale Drake (16), 7. Zach Wigal (9), 8. Hayden Reinbold (5), 9. Brecken Reese (12), 10. Gunnar Setser (10), 11. Colton Robinson (11), 12. Mack Leopard (19), 13. Kyle Jones (20), 14. Drake Edwards (8), 15. Brandon Carr (15), 16. Rylan Gray (13), 17. Hayden Wise (17), 18. Adam Taylor (14), 19. Chelby Hinton (18), 20. Tony Helton (21), 21. Ethan Mitchell (4), 22. Bradley Cox (22).
