SPEEDWAY, Ind. — Kale Drake has a new address for the 2026 USAC NOS Energy Drink Midget National Championship season.
The 20-year-old Collinsville, Oklahoma, native will pilot the RMS Racing No. 4 on the full 29-race tour this coming year after competing for the past two-plus seasons with Keith Kunz/Curb-Agajanian Motorsports.
Drake, the 2025 USAC Indiana Midget Week champion, has made 46 series starts, winning three features over the past two seasons.
Last year, he took fifth in series points, winning twice overall at Missouri’s Sweet Springs Motorsports Park and Indiana’s Circle City Raceway. In 2024, he won a BC39 preliminary feature at The Dirt Track at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Drake is excited for a new chapter with RMS, one that has already seen him get his feet wet with a few starts already this year for the team, including a third at Oklahoma City’s I-44 Speedway just a little more than a week ago. But this deal for the new combo began at the tail end of last year when Drake was a free agent looking for a new home.
“I talked to (RMS Crew Chief) Lacey (Doyle) a little bit at Ventura,” Drake recalled. “She said she didn’t really have another driver for next year, and I really didn’t have any for-sure plans. I just kind of threw it at her and said, ‘if you want a driver, I might be down to race with you all.’ They got back to me I ended up driving for them at the Chili Bowl. Her and (car owner) Dave (Estep) called me and I drove up to Cedar Lake and they showed me around their shop and their operation. We talked about it and it all kind of snowballed from there.”
Not only will Drake be racing for RMS, he’ll also be working for them full-time at their Cedar Lake, Indiana headquarters, getting fully intertwined with the team’s daily operations.
“I took the opportunity to come up there and work with them full-time,” Drake said of his new opportunity at RMS. “I’m going to work in their shop this year and travel around racing with them, just doing as much midget racing as we possibly can and see what that can turn it into. We have really similar goals and we both want to win and be the best version of ourselves. That goes a long ways, I think.”
Drake has made all 46 of his USAC National Midget starts for Keith Kunz/Curb-Agajanian Motorsports.
“It wasn’t like there was any parting in that sort,” Drake explained. “When Keith offered me the job at KKM and I got to move up here and pursue this full time, the whole end goal was for me to be hired by another team, to become a racecar driver and do this for a living. So, when that opportunity was there, it was like, this is what you came out here to do. You came out here to prove yourself and show what you’re capable of. Now that other drivers and other teams are seeing that, you need to take the opportunity and run with it.”
Several drivers have driven for KKM over the years, 124 of them, in fact, just in USAC National Midget competition alone dating back to 1985.
“Keith, in a way, said that this is no one’s forever home, but we like showing you off, help build you up to what you’re capable of and push you along the ranks,” Drake elaborated. “For them to give me that ground to really do that was pretty cool. To work with them and accomplish some really big things last year was really good for me. I’m forever grateful for everything they’ve done. Working with that whole crew was super cool and I learned a ton. I definitely wouldn’t be here without them.”
As for his new digs at RMS, Drake is eager to get the USAC National Midget season underway with a team that has won 22 USAC National Midget feature events.
“I know it’s going to be a process, but, it’s something that I’m really looking forward to,” Drake acknowledged. “I’m going to do our best to speed it up as quickly as possible, but you can’t really skip that, so I’m looking forward to it. I look forward to the work that goes into it. So, there’s a lot of it to be done, and I’m really excited for what’s to come.”
