By Richie Murray
Kokomo, Indiana (April 26, 2025)………Jacob Denney’s tenure as a driver for Keith Kunz/Curb-Agajanian Motorsports couldn’t have possibly gotten off to any better of a start than it did during Saturday night’s USAC NOS Energy Drink Midget National Championship season opener at Indiana’s Kokomo Speedway.
Denney tracked down leader Kevin Thomas Jr. on the 13th lap and led the remaining 18 circuits to earn his fourth career series victory. In fact, it was Denney’s first series victory since May 2023 at Indiana’s Tri-State Speedway, a winless drought that had endured for 48 events and nearly two full calendar years!
Galloway, Ohio’s Denney migrated to the famed No. 67 during the offseason after his previous team owned by Tom Malloy scaled back its racing activities for the 2025 season. In his first run for KKM in a USAC event, Denney joined a legion of drivers who have, likewise, achieved the same feat.
Five drivers prior to Denney had actually won the feature in their first ever USAC National Midget start for the Columbus, Indiana KKM operation: Page Jones (1992 Kokomo Speedway), Jerry Coons Jr. (2000 Hartford Speedway Park), Davey Ray (2005 Gas City I-69 Speedway), Logan Seavey (2018 Southern Illinois Center) and Ryan Timms (Red Dirt Raceway).
Denney became the sixth individual to join the elite group. Additionally, he also provided Kunz his record-extending seventh season opening USAC National Midget win as a car entrant, and his third in a row. Kunz’s three consecutive opening night wins with the series are just one shy of equaling the record set by Steve Lewis’ “Nine Cars” between 1997-2000.
For Denney and his JBL Audio – TRD – Toyota – Mobil 1/LynK/Speedway Toyota, it’s so far, so good, so fast.
“We’ve been super-fast every night we’ve hit the track,” Denney said. “I feel like we’ve had the car to win. Little things can go each way, and it’s just how racing goes, but we have a great piece. Hopefully, the year continues like this.”
Starting fifth, Denney quickly slotted into the second spot on lap one and promptly began his pursuit of race leader and third starting Kevin Thomas Jr. who grabbed the initial lead. Denney briefly slid his way into the lead past Thomas in turn two on lap six, but Thomas countered and roared his way back past Denney on the bottom of turn three to retake the spot a half lap later.
On the 13th go around, Denney recreated his turn two move from several laps earlier, but this time, he made it stick as he surpassed Thomas for the spot at the front of the pack. Denney led Thomas at the line by a wheel, then bounced along the cushion in turns three and four as he simultaneously held onto his saddle with one hand and his calf rope in the other as he went highwire through the back half of the field.
“I didn’t think I was ever going to get around him,” Denney explained of his pursuit of Thomas. “Every time I slid him, he’d either cross me over or I’d make a mistake and he’d get back by me. This car was on rails, so once I got to the front, I was hammer down the rest of the race.”
As a matter of fact, over the next several laps, Denney extended his advantage to more than 4.8 seconds over Cannon McIntosh who had moved into the runner-up position past Thomas after Denney overtook the lead. However, as Denney attempted to put 11th running Hayden Reinbold a lap down entering turn three on lap 29 of 30. A collision between Denney’s right rear wheel and Reinbold’s left front sent Reinbold streaming nose first into the outside wall before flipping over twice and coming to a rest. Reinbold walked away from his heavily damaged racecar while Denney maintained his footing and continued on.
“I would like to apologize to Hayden,” Denney admitted. “That was completely my fault. I thought he was going to the top because he was outside of a guy, then he peeled to the middle. By that time, I committed and it was too late.”
Though the contact didn’t end his race, in another way, Denney felt that he might have inadvertently cost himself dearly with an upcoming green-white-checkered restart on the horizon.
“I thought I lost the race,” Denney explained. “I was waiting for somebody to slide me on the restart, so I knew the restart was going to be critical. I was sitting there under the red flag on the front stretch and I saw everybody else on the back stretch. I was like, “dang I just blew a huge lead.”
Despite that fact, still nobody had anything to contend with the new zip code Denney was continuously establishing. As Denney crossed the finish line, his margin of victory stood at 1.555 seconds as he returned to Kokomo Speedway victory lane for the first time since capturing a USAC Midwest Thunder SpeeD2 Midget feature in 2020.
McIntosh, the 2024 USAC National Midget season opening winner, finished as the runner-up while Pursley took third on the final lap. Kale Drake passed under the flag stand in fourth while Justin Grant rounded out the top-five.
Cannon McIntosh (Bixby, Oklahoma) equaled his best career Kokomo Grand Prix finish with a second place run right behind teammate Denney to make it a one-two finish for team KKM.
It’s safe to say, Kale Drake (Collinsville, Oklahoma) likes Kokomo Speedway. On this night, he advanced from 11th to 4th in the feature to earn Rod End Supply Hard Charger honors. In his only other USAC National Midget start at Kokomo in 2024, he finished fifth.
The Inferno Armor Fire Move of the Night belongs to Cale Coons (Greencastle, Indiana) who raced to a top-10 finish in his first career USAC National Midget feature start at Kokomo. Similarly, his father, Jerry Coons Jr. finished with a top-10 in his first Kokomo Speedway USAC National Midget start, a seventh place result in 1991.
For the third consecutive year, Justin Grant set quick time in the USAC National Midget season opener. He topped the Kokomo field this time with a lap of 13.285 seconds in Honest Abe Roofing Qualifying. Furthermore, Grant is only the second driver ever to go three-straight as Kevin Thomas Jr. did the same in 2019-20-21. Overall, it’s the 10th fast time of Grant’s USAC National Midget career, tying him with George Amick, Pancho Carter and Allen Crowe for 64th all-time.
USAC NOS ENERGY DRINK MIDGET NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP RACE RESULTS: April 26, 2025 – Kokomo Speedway – Kokomo, Indiana – 1/4-Mile Dirt Oval – Kokomo Grand Prix
HONEST ABE ROOFING QUALIFYING: 1. Justin Grant, 87, CBI-13.285; 2. Jacob Denney, 67, Kunz/Curb-Agajanian-13.320; 3. Drake Edwards, 83, CBI-13.330; 4. Kevin Thomas Jr., 14, 4 Kings-13.355; 5. Logan Seavey, 57, Abacus-13.403; 6. Cannon McIntosh, 71K, Kunz/Curb-Agajanian-13.451; 7. Daison Pursley, 86, CBI-13.530; 8. Karter Sarff, 21K, Sarff-13.541; 9. Gavin Miller, 97, Kunz/Curb-Agajanian-13.556; 10. Kale Drake, 97K, Kunz/Curb-Agajanian-13.643; 11. Steven Snyder Jr., 4, RMS-13.677; 12. Hayden Reinbold, 19AZ, Reinbold/Underwood-13.702; 13. Frankie Guerrini, 63G, F & F-13.706; 14. Steve Buckwalter, 25, Buckwalter-13.717; 15. Sam Johnson, 72J, Johnson-13.757; 16. Cale Coons, 63, Dooling/Curb-Agajanian-13.826; 17. Kyle Jones, 27x, Joyner-13.877; 18. Gunnar Setser, 43, Arnold-13.976; 19. Brecken Reese, 00, Chandler-14.038; 20. Bryan Stanfill, 75AU, Griffiths-14.125; 21. Chelby Hinton, 4B, Klatt-14.360; 22. Chris Baue, 36, Baue-14.503; 23. Michael Magic, 5m, Magic-14.590; 24. Dan Bennett, X, Bennett-14.657; 25. Jason Bennett, 29, Bennett-14.684; 26. Adam Taylor, 7T, ATM-17.669.
CAR IQ FIRST HEAT: (10 laps, all transfer to the feature) 1. Daison Pursley, 2. Justin Grant, 3. Kevin Thomas Jr., 4. Cale Coons, 5. Kale Drake, 6. Frankie Guerrini, 7. Brecken Reese, 8. Michael Magic. 2:15.808
K1 RACEGEAR SECOND HEAT: (10 laps, all transfer to the feature) 1. Steven Snyder Jr., 2. Kyle Jones, 3. Jacob Denney, 4. Steve Buckwalter, 5. Karter Sarff, 6. Logan Seavey, 7. Dan Bennett, 8. Bryan Stanfill. 2:16.159
HOOSIER TIRE / COOK OUT THIRD HEAT: (10 laps, all transfer to the feature) 1. Cannon McIntosh, 2. Gunnar Setser, 3. Drake Edwards, 4. Sam Johnson, 5. Gavin Miller, 6. Hayden Reinbold, 7. Chris Baue, 8. Jason Bennett. NT
FEATURE: (30 laps, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Jacob Denney (5), 2. Cannon McIntosh (1), 3. Daison Pursley (7), 4. Kale Drake (11), 5. Justin Grant (6), 6. Gavin Miller (10), 7. Karter Sarff (9), 8. Drake Edwards (4), 9. Steven Snyder Jr. (8), 10. Cale Coons (16), 11. Logan Seavey (2), 12. Kyle Jones (17), 13. Gunnar Setser (18), 14. Frankie Guerrini (13), 15. Sam Johnson (15), 16. Steve Buckwalter (14), 17. Bryan Stanfill (20), 18. Brecken Reese (19), 19. Dan Bennett (21), 20. Kevin Thomas Jr. (3), 21. Hayden Reinbold (12), 22. Jason Bennett (22), 23. Michael Magic (23), 24. Chris Baue (24). NT
**Hayden Reinbold flipped on lap 29 of the feature.
FEATURE LAP LEADERS: Laps 1-12 Kevin Thomas Jr., Laps 13-30 Jacob Denney.
USAC NOS ENERGY DRINK MIDGET NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS: 1-Jacob Denney-81, 2-Cannon McIntosh-76, 3-Daison Pursley-72, 4-Justin Grant-71, 5-Kale Drake-65, 6-Gavin Miller-59, 7-Drake Edwards-59, 8-Karter Sarff-56, 9-Steven Snyder Jr.-54, 10-Cale Coons-48.
USAC PARALLAX GROUP NATIONAL PASSING MASTER POINTS: 1-Kale Drake-62, 2-C.J. Leary-48, 3-Briggs Danner-36, 4-Jadon Rogers-26, 5-Chase Stockon-24, 6-Kyle Cummins-19, 7-Robert Ballou-18, 8-Justin Grant-17, 9-Daison Pursley-17, 10-Jake Swanson-17.
NEXT USAC NOS ENERGY DRINK MIDGET NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP RACE: April 27, 2025 – Kokomo Speedway – Kokomo, Indiana – 1/4-Mile Dirt Oval – Kokomo Grand Prix
CONTINGENCY AWARD WINNERS:
Dirt Draft Hot Laps Fastest Driver: Drake Edwards (13.324)
Honest Abe Roofing Fast Qualifier: Justin Grant (13.285)
Car IQ First Heat Winner: Daison Pursley
K1 RaceGear Second Heat Winner: Steven Snyder Jr.
Hoosier Tire / Cook Out Third Heat Winner: Cannon McIntosh
Rod End Supply Hard Charger: Kale Drake (11th to 4th)
Inferno Armor Fire Move of the Night: Cale Coons