Cannon McIntosh Dominates Atomic Speedway for Third Xtreme Outlaw Win of 2024
CHILLICOTHE, Ohio — Cannon McIntosh has won races in 2024, but none in as dominant of fashion as his victory Saturday night.
McIntosh, 21, of Bixby, OK, took to the high-banked, 3/8-mile oval of Atomic Speedway and put on a clinic for 25 laps, leading flag-to-flag for his third win of the season with the Xtreme Outlaw Midget Series presented by Toyota.
His first two wins on tour this year both came after some misfortune bit his opponents in the final laps. But this one was different – he didn’t need anything other than the speed of his own car, which there was plenty of as he ripped around the top of the track en route to his eighth career Series win.
“The car had great balance, great speed really all night and it showed,” McIntosh said. “Definitely had a good piece under us and executed, which was the most important thing.”
For the first 10 laps, McIntosh began to separate himself from the field, opening up a gap of nearly 1.5 seconds before his Keith Kunz/Curb-Agajanian Motorsports (KKM) teammates Ryan Timms and Kale Drake began to reel him in. As McIntosh neared lapped traffic, Timms closed the gap even more.
“I couldn’t tell if what I was doing out of (Turn) 2 was good or not,” McIntosh said. “I was trying to cut down the track and make speed. It was getting so slick and I felt like I was starting to lose speed there. I think that’s when Ryan started to close on me.”
Timms, 17, of Oklahoma City, OK, got close enough to make his first bid at the lead on Lap 16 with a big slide job on McIntosh in Turn 1, but he was unable to clear McIntosh as they raced out of Turn 2.
When McIntosh dove low in Turn 1 to slide up in front of lapped cars the next time by, Timms was waiting on the doorstep to try and get a run on him down the backstretch. He tried another slider on his teammate in Turns 3 and 4 but again was unable to get clear.
“I think I started to catch [McIntosh] right before we got to lapped traffic, and then when we got into traffic, I was right on him,” Timms said. “We got racing with lapped cars there, and I threw a couple bombs on him, but here it’s just so hard to clear sliders.”
The race’s only break in the action came on Lap 18 when Jacob Dykstra got into the wall and flipped hard in Turn 3. After he walked with assistance from medical personnel to the ambulance for further evaluation, and was later released, the field was restacked with eight laps remaining.
This took the leaders out of lapped traffic and put them back into clean air, which played right into McIntosh’s favor.
“Once we had the [open] red, Keith just kinda told me where I needed to make adjustments with my line,” McIntosh said. “I was able to take off really well on the restart and just set sail.”
McIntosh got the restart he was looking for and again opened up a gap on Timms that grew every lap – up to a full second by the checkered flag.
“This place is big, it’s fast, it’s hard to get runs on guys so those restarts are key,” McIntosh said. “I knew I had to get a good initial start and that restart, and I was able to get a good launch on both of those.”
Timms crossed the finish line second, backing up the win he scored on Friday night. Though he did not make up any points in the championship standings, needing to beat points leader McIntosh to decrease his gap, he kept things close with another podium finish.
“To come home with a [first and second] is nothing to hang your head about at all,” Timms said. “Really happy with the results this weekend. I just kinda need Cannon to have some bad luck – not wishing it upon him – but if I want to have a shot to catch up here.”
Kale Drake crossed the line third, rebounding from what could have been a second win of the season on Friday after blowing a tire while leading late in the race.
“Cannon and Ryan were racing really hard and it just really opened up the door for me, and I could see what was going on from the outside looking in,” Drake said. “I really felt like we were the car to beat there, but the cards just didn’t fall our way tonight.”
For the second night in-a-row, Drake picked up the Whitz Racing Products Quick Time Award in Qualifying with his best lap of 14.324.
Chase McDermand won Toyota Racing Heat Race 1, while Trevor Cline won TJ Forged Heat Race 2.
UP NEXT: The Xtreme Outlaw Midgets return to competition next Thursday, Friday and Saturday – May 30-31, June 1 – for a swing through Missouri and Illinois at Doe Run Raceway, Coles County Speedway and Wayne County (IL) Speedway.
Tickets for all three races will be on sale at the gate on race day. If you can’t make it to the track to watch in person, stream live on DIRTVision.
RESULTS
Feature (25 Laps): 1. 71K-Cannon McIntosh[2]; 2. 67-Ryan Timms[3]; 3. 97-Kale Drake[4]; 4. 67K-Ashton Torgerson[6]; 5. 19AZ-Hayden Reinbold[11]; 6. 40-Chase McDermand[1]; 7. 71-Jade Avedisian[7]; 8. 7U-Zach Daum[10]; 9. 55-Trevor Cline[5]; 10. 98-Elijah Gile[12]; 11. 14S-Tyler Edwards[9]; 12. 1K-Brayton Lynch[13]; 13. 66-Jayden Clay[14]; 14. 76-Michael Smith[16]; 15. 26-Corbin Rueschenberg[8]; 16. 5D-Jacob Dykstra[15]
Heat 1 (8 Laps): 1. 40-Chase McDermand[1]; 2. 97-Kale Drake[4]; 3. 67K-Ashton Torgerson[2]; 4. 71-Jade Avedisian[3]; 5. 14S-Tyler Edwards[5]; 6. 98-Elijah Gile[8]; 7. 1K-Brayton Lynch[7]; 8. 5D-Jacob Dykstra[6]
Heat 2 (8 Laps): 1. 55-Trevor Cline[1]; 2. 67-Ryan Timms[3]; 3. 71K-Cannon McIntosh[4]; 4. 26-Corbin Rueschenberg[2]; 5. 7U-Zach Daum[6]; 6. 19AZ-Hayden Reinbold[5]; 7. 66-Jayden Clay[8]; 8. 76-Michael Smith[7]
Qualifying 1 (3 Laps): 1. 97-Kale Drake, 00:14.324[1]; 2. 71-Jade Avedisian, 00:14.388[2]; 3. 67K-Ashton Torgerson, 00:14.413[4]; 4. 40-Chase McDermand, 00:14.642[6]; 5. 14S-Tyler Edwards, 00:14.667[7]; 6. 5D-Jacob Dykstra, 00:14.760[5]; 7. 1K-Brayton Lynch, 00:14.786[3]; 8. 98-Elijah Gile, 00:14.892[8]
Qualifying 2 (3 Laps): 1. 71K-Cannon McIntosh, 00:14.467[6]; 2. 67-Ryan Timms, 00:14.560[3]; 3. 26-Corbin Rueschenberg, 00:14.793[1]; 4. 55-Trevor Cline, 00:14.827[5]; 5. 19AZ-Hayden Reinbold, 00:14.902[8]; 6. 7U-Zach Daum, 00:15.161[2]; 7. 76-Michael Smith, 00:15.633[4]; 8. 66-Jayden Clay, 00:15.849[7]
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