McIntosh Drives Toyota To Victory At Kokomo

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After fighting through a stretch of bad luck early in the season, nothing was going to get in Cannon McIntosh’s way on Saturday as he took the lead on lap nine of 30 and proceeded to pull away from the field in winning Saturday’s USAC NOS Energy Drink National Midget Series feature at Kokomo Speedway in the penultimate round of Indiana Midget Week.

The victory is McIntosh’s first in USAC competition this season, giving him a win in each of the three national series. It is the 15th career national midget feature win for the 19-year-old Bixby, Oklahoma native.

McIntosh began the night’s festivities with his second FatHeadz Fast Qualifying time of the season and would start the race in the sixth spot in the inverted field.

After a pair of rain delays, when the green flag would finally wave for the night’s feature event, it was another Toyota driver, Justin Grant, who would go to the front of the field in the early going followed by Jason McDougal, Kaylee Bryson and Buddy Kofoid.

While Grant held down the top spot, McIntosh was quickly carving his way through the field, moving up into third place by lap four, then into second on lap six and began to close on Grant. Three laps later, McIntosh would slide Grant for the lead.

By lap 19, McIntosh had pulled out to a 3.2-second lead with just 11 laps remaining before a caution flag waved. McIntosh had the field covered on the restart, but Grant would give up second to Jacob Denney who ran the low side into second.

From there on out, it was all McIntosh as he pulled back out to a 2.6-second lead on the way to the victory.  Denney would finish second, followed by Grant in third, McDougal in fourth and Kofoid in fifth to give Toyota three of the top-five finishers on the night.

Toyota drivers also captured positions six through ten with Bryson in sixth, Bryant Wiedeman in seventh, Brenham Crouch was eighth, Thomas Meseraull in ninth and Taylor Reimer placing tenth.

The 2022 Indiana Midget Week closes out Sunday at Circle City Raceway, where current point leader Kofoid will look to secure his second straight Indiana Midget Week title.

Quotes:

Cannon McIntosh, Dave Mac Dalby Motorsports: “It’s been a long time coming. We’ve been able to get wins in other series and have been so close here in USAC, but just weren’t able to pull it off. The car was really, really good. To do this for Crescent, Toyota, Mobil 1 and everyone who’s a part of this team is pretty awesome.”

Justin Grant, RMS Racing: “I probably should have gotten tighter. I was amped up to smash the fence here. I was hoping the bottom would slow down and come back to me. Congrats to Cannon. He’s a heck of a racer and it’s good to see him up here.”

TRD PR

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