TULSA, Okla. – The USAC NOS Energy Drink National Midget Series is set to return to Port City Raceway this weekend for the second running of the Werco Manufacturing T-Town Midget Showdown presented by the Rayce Rudeen Foundation.
The April 9-10 event features a stacked entry list, with 41 drivers and cars pre-entered for the Elite Racing Promotions event, headed by Brady Bacon and wife Xia Xianna.
The doubleheader features more than $43,000 in purse money and bonuses throughout the two nights of racing at Port City, with a $7,001 winner’s share for the 50-lap finale on April 10.
Dahmer Powertrain Inc. has also increased the minimum payout for all midget feature starters to $500 on Saturday.
Justin Grant comes in as the most recent feature winner with the USAC midgets at Port City, winning the finale of the 2020 T-Town Midget Showdown after leading the final 28 laps to score the victory.
Current series point leader Buddy Kofoid finished 11th and eighth, respectively, last year and won his heat on the second night. His third-place run with POWRi on March 28 marked his best run thus far at the track.
Thomas Meseraull, fourth in USAC’s national midget standings, was victorious in the series’ most recent feature event at Ocala on Feb. 8. A little more than 10 months prior at Port City, he took 13th in the T-Town opener and rose to seventh on night two.
Chris Windom is tied with Kofoid at the top of the standings after two events, but is officially second coming into the weekend due to the win tiebreaker.
The USAC Triple Crown champion was the only driver to lead laps on both nights at Port City in 2020 while also finishing on the podium both times, taking third on night one after leading 20 laps and ranking second on night two after pacing the field for 10 circuits.
Cannon McIntosh owns the USAC track record at Port City of 9.398 seconds, set on night two of T-Town in 2020, but took fifth and won his heat on night one last year. He recently finished fifth in March’s Turnpike Challenge at the track.
McIntosh won that race in 2020, and was also the winner of last Saturday’s non-points Ricky Stenhouse Jr. Hometown Challenge finale at Riverside Int’l Speedway in Arkansas.
Daison Pursley won the opener of the Stenhouse Challenge in West Memphis last Friday. He’s finished inside the top five in both his USAC NOS Energy Drink National Midget starts this season and finished a best of ninth on night two of T-Town one year ago.
Pursley took a fourth-place result late in 2020 at Port City with POWRi.
A year ago at T-Town, Reinbold-Underwood Motorsports made its debut as a USAC National Midget team. This weekend will mark another debut for the Arizona-based operation with 2016 series champion Tanner Thorson behind the wheel.
Thorson was fourth and 10th at T-Town in 2020, and captured runner-up finishes at the track’s Turnpike Challenge in both 2016 and 2020. Thorson was victorious in the most recent USAC midget race held in Oklahoma, winning at Meeker’s Red Dirt Raceway last July.
Reinbold-Underwood finished second in their first outing at T-Town a year ago, at the time with Logan Seavey driving from 19th to a runner-up finish, which earned him KSE Racing Products Hard Charger honors for the evening.
Seavey, the 2018 USAC National Midget champion who now drives for Tom Malloy, went forward again on night two in 2020, racing from 16th to fifth. Seavey won at Port City in 2020 during POWRI’s Donnie Ray Crawford Sooner State 55.
Oklahoman Tyler Thomas finished 10th and 11th during the 2020 T-Town and was 10th again with POWRi at Port City in March.
The 2018 Jason Leffler Memorial winner at Wayne County Speedway in Illinois earned a best midget finish of fourth at Port City during the 2016 Turnpike Challenge.
Kevin Thomas Jr. was one of 19 drivers to start both T-Town features in 2020, along with Grant, Kofoid, McIntosh, Meseraull, Pursley, Seavey, Thomas, Thorson, Windom and Ethan Mitchell, as well as reigning POWRi national champion Jake Neuman, Jonathan Beason and Kaylee Bryson among those who will be in attendance for the second edition of the event.
Four more drivers made a feature start on just one of the two nights of T-Town in 2020 and return this year. Emerson Axsom and Emilio Hoover each made their USAC debuts at Port City in 2020.
Meanwhile, Jason McDougal was a micro sprint standout at Port City, and Ace McCarthy stands as one of 15 Oklahoma drivers on this weekend’s pre-entry list.
The list of T-Town Midget Showdown first-timers includes a handful that have previous midget experience at Port City, including Bryant Wiedeman and Joe B. Miller.
Missouri’s Sam Johnson (12th), Texas’ Brenham Crouch (16th), Nebraska’s Trey Gropp (20th), Texas’ Kyle Jones (21st) and Oklahoma’s Chance Morton (24th) each participated in March’s Turnpike Challenge at Port City.
Nine-time USAC AMSOIL National Sprint Car feature winner Kyle Cummins will make his Port City debut with the USAC midgets, as will Derek Hagar, Jesse Colwell and rookie-of-the-year contenders Chase Randall and Hayden Reinbold.
NASCAR Cup Series and Truck Series veteran Tanner Berryhill will make his T-Town debut, as will reigning USAC Midwest Thunder Speed2 Midget Series titlist Jacob Denney, USAC midget veterans Kade Morton, Casey Hicks and Oliver Akard.
Brian Carber will look to make his first USAC feature start, with Kevin Brewer, Cade Cowles, Kyle Wilson, Alex Sewell and Glenn Bratti also joining the fray.
Only 14 previous USAC National Midget Series events have been held in the state of Oklahoma, five of which have been held in the past three seasons.
Bob Wente, the 1963 series champion, is the lone multi-time winner in Oklahoma with two scores. Christopher Bell, Jimmy Caruthers, Jimmy Davies, John Batts, Grant, Lloyd Ruby, Seavey, Roger West, Sleepy Tripp, Steve Cannon, Thorson and Tyler Courtney have each won once in the Sooner State behind the wheel of a USAC midget.
ENTRY LIST: USAC National Midget Series T-Town Midget Showdown
00 – Ace McCarthy – Tahlequah, Okla.
01 – Bryant Wiedeman – Colby, Kan.
05 – Kyle Wilson – Jenks, Okla.
08 – Cannon McIntosh – Bixby, Okla.
2J – Justin Grant – Ione, Calif.
3G – Kyle Cummins – Princeton, Ind.
3N – Jake Neuman – New Berlin, Ill.
4 – Jason McDougal – Broken Arrow, Okla.
5 – Kevin Thomas Jr. – Cullman, Ala.
5H – Casey Hicks – Westwood, Kan.
7MF – Chance Morton – Coweta, Okla.
7u – Kyle Jones – Kennedale, Texas
7x – Thomas Meseraull – San Jose, Calif.
8 – Alex Sewell – Broken Arrow, Okla.
8J – Jonathan Beason – Broken Arrow, Okla.
8m – Kade Morton – Coweta, Okla.
9JR – Derek Hagar – Marion, Ark.
14H – Jesse Colwell – Red Bluff, Calif.
15 – Emerson Axsom – Franklin, Ind.
17 – Tanner Berryhill – Bixby, Okla.
19 – Brian Carber – Pipersville, Pa.
19a – Chase Randall – Waco, Texas
19az – Hayden Reinbold – Gilbert, Ariz.
19m – Ethan Mitchell – Mooresville, N.C.
19t – Tanner Thorson – Minden, Nev.
21k – Emilio Hoover – Broken Arrow, Okla.
21ks – Trey Gropp – Lincoln, Neb.
24t – Glenn Bratti – Springdale, Ark.
25 – Logan Seavey – Sutter, Calif.
35 – Jacob Denney – Galloway, Ohio
41 – Oliver Akard – Fort Myers, Fla.
47k – Kevin Brewer – Owasso, Okla.
49 – Joe B. Miller – Millersville, Mo.
67 – Buddy Kofoid – Penngrove, Calif.
70 – Cade Cowles – Bixby, Okla.
71 – Kaylee Bryson – Muskogee, Okla.
71k – Daison Pursley – Locust Grove, Okla.
72 – Sam Johnson – St. Peters, Mo.
89 – Chris Windom – Canton, Ill.
91t – Tyler Thomas – Collinsville, Okla.
97 – Brenham Crouch – Lubbock, Texas