Story By: JORDAN DELUCIA / XTREME OUTLAW SERIES – LEWISTOWN, IL – The Xtreme Outlaw Midget Series presented by Toyota returns to action from the summer break this Friday and Saturday night for a doubleheader at Spoon River Speedway with the POWRi National Midget League.
Now entering the second half of the season, Cannon McIntosh leads the Xtreme Outlaw championship standings by 145 points over Ryan Timms with 14 races complete and 15 remaining. Spoon River kicks off another extended stretch of action with the Series, racing in each of the next four weekends through the middle of August.
Rounds 5 and 6 of the 2024 Xtreme Outlaw-POWRi Challenge Series hits the high-banked, 3/8-mile oval for a 25-lap, $4,000-to-win main event Friday, July 19, before the 30-lap, $5,000-to-win finale on Saturday. Ashton Torgerson currently leads Challenge Series points by 11 over Ryan Timms; the champion of the miniseries receives a $2,500 bonus check at season’s end in October.
Tickets for both nights at Spoon River are available by clicking here.
Here are the drivers to watch and storylines to follow this weekend:
HALFWAY THERE – Cannon McIntosh leads the Xtreme Outlaw Series back into action as the points leader with only half of the season remaining in the quest for his first career national Midget series championship.
McIntosh, 21, of Bixby, OK, holds a 145-point lead over second place Ryan Timms with four Features wins in the first 14 races of 2024. He held similar statistics at the halfway point of the 2023 season, totaling four Feature wins and maintaining a points gap of over 100 on second place, but fell back to fourth in the championship standings after the season finale.
He’s also riding a streak of 14-straight top-five finishes in Xtreme Outlaw Series competition, going all the way back to the season opener in Du Quoin in March. This past weekend, McIntosh bagged two podium finishes in USAC Midget competition at Jefferson County Speedway (Fairbury, NE), giving he and his crew at Keith Kunz/Curb-Agajanian Motorsports (KKM) a momentum boost before an extended stretch of Xtreme Outlaw Series racing for the next four weekends.
TARGET ACQUIRED – Sitting 145 points out of the lead in second place is McIntosh’s KKM teammate, Ryan Timms – a USAC winner over the weekend, now charged with momentum and ready to begin chipping away at his points deficit.
Timms, 17, of Oklahoma City, OK, scored his fourth Midget win of the season Saturday at Jefferson County and now has two wins with both Xtreme and USAC with half of each series’ schedule remaining. Timms is a winner with Xtreme at both Farmer City Raceway and Atomic Speedway this season, tying him for third-most wins with Illinois racer Karter Sarff at two apiece.
Though Timms has yet to see the high banks of Spoon River in a Midget, the speed and banking he experienced at Atomic will be similar, pointing to a potential third and fourth Xtreme Outlaw win of the year Friday and Saturday night.
GOT THE POWR – Similar to 2023, McIntosh leads the POWRi National Midget League points standings at the halfway point of the season but only by 10 points over full-timer Gunnar Setser.
McIntosh has two POWRi wins so far this season – one in the Challenge Series event at Doe Run Raceway in May and the other in the most recent POWRi National event at Macon Speedway during the tour’s annual Illinois SPEEDweek in June.
Karter Sarff clinched the 2023 POWRi National championship in the final race of the season over McIntosh last October. The 21-year-old from Mason City, IL, has won twice with the Xtreme Outlaw Series this year and currently sits eighth in Series points.
CHALLENGE SERIES – Spoon River will play host to Rounds 5 and 6 of the 2024 Challenge Series – a tight points race where the top-six drivers in the standings are separated by 100 points.
Ashton Torgerson currently leads the points standings by 11 over Ryan Timms. Torgerson, 18, of Glendale, AZ, has two wins and three top-fives in the four completed races and will go for his fifth Midget win overall this weekend. Between Xtreme and POWRi, he’s totaled four Feature wins so far in his rookie Midget season.
While Timms remains 11 points behind Torgerson, McIntosh sits 13 points back in third place, Chase McDermand is fourth at 30 points back, Gavin Miller is fifth at 96 points back, and Zach Daum is sixth, 100 points out of the lead.
PAST WINNERS – While national Midget series racing has not seen the high banks of Spoon River in three years, two Xtreme Outlaw Series full-timers and Illinois natives have graced its Victory Lane hill in Midget competition before.
Former Badger Midget Racing Association champion Chase McDermand won two D2 Midget-style IMRA-sanctioned races at the track in 2017. The 23-year-old from Springfield, IL, currently sits fourth in the championship standings, still looking for his first Feature win of the year.
Zach Daum – the inaugural Series champion from Pocahontas, IL – won a POWRi National event there in 2014, topping star open-wheel names like Rico Abreu, Tanner Thorson and Justin Peck in the main event. Fast forward to 2024 and the three-time POWRi National champion sits fifth in Xtreme championship standings with one win and seven top-five finishes in 14 races.