September 1, 2025 | By Richie Murray, USAC Media

Gavin Miller Mines $10,000 at Angell Park’s 40th Firemen’s Nationals

SUN PRAIRIE, Wis.—Throughout the first 63 feature starts of his USAC NOS Energy Drink Midget National Championship career, Gavin Miller possessed just a single, solitary victory.

Now, after his latest triumph in Sunday night’s 40th running of the Firemen’s Nationals at Sun Prairie, Wisconsin’s Angell Park Speedway, it’s safe to say the Allentown, Pennsylvania racer is heating up at just the right time.

Over his past four series starts, Miller has amassed three victories, including two in a three day span this weekend starting with Friday’s round at Indiana’s Bloomington Speedway and again on Sunday at Angell Park where he led the final 38 circuits of the 40-lapper to earn a cool $10,000 reward.

In addition, Miller led a complete sweep of the podium with each of the top-three finishers all hailing from the Keith Kunz/Curb-Agajanian Motorsports stable as Cannon McIntosh and Kale Drake crossed the line first and second, respectively.

“Everyone’s clicking well and I’m feeling the best I ever have in this car,” Miller said in praise of his team led by Beau Binder, the crew chief on the Keith Kunz-Curb-Agajanian Motorsports/SoundGear – Toyota – Mobil 1/LynK/Speedway Toyota.

In 2023, Miller led a race high 20 laps and finished as the runner-up at the Firemen’s Nationals. Starting third this time around, he made quick work of the frontrunners. On a lap three restart following 15th running Zach Wigal’s bike and spin in turn three, Miller got busy grooving the low line as he blew by Drake for second in turn one, then overtook Brecken Reese for the lead on the back straight moments later. Meanwhile, McIntosh followed suit to second a lap later past Reese.

Nearing halfway, Miller had ballooned his lead over McIntosh to more than three seconds as he fought through traffic, all while trying to navigate a tricky surface on the 1/3-mile dirt oval that had many a driver flabbergasted at the prospect of the exit of turn four, snagging right rear tires and snapping their front wheels to the right, straight toward the front straightaway wall.

A number of cautions in the second half – five to be precise – didn’t allow Miller to scurry too far away for any prolonged period of time. In relatively short spurts, the main mover was Drake who had fallen back to sixth after running as high as second during the opening laps. By lap 32, Drake was back up to third as he blasted by Grant on the front straightaway after Grant got corked up sideways off turn four.

With two laps remaining, Miller found himself in full command of the race with a 1.341 second advantage in his pocket. However, Mack Leopard (16th) came to a stop in turn four on lap 39 to necessitate a yellow, which completely wiped out Miller’s lead, therein forcing a green-white-checkered finish between the triumvirate of KKM team cars driven by Miller, McIntosh and Drake.

That said, soon after the restart, Cale Coons became the next victim of the turn four cushion of voodoo. He came to a stop just moments after Drake snuck by McIntosh for second and was setting up to make his run at Miller for the lead. But with the yellow flag, all of Drake’s work was negated due to scoring reverting to the last completed lap, which slotted Drake back into third behind McIntosh.

With restart after restart stifling Miller’s rhythm, the yellow flag wasn’t a pleasant sight, especially with McIntosh in prime position to pounce and a surging Drake prepared to pose a threat to Miller’s near racelong lead.

“I kind of messed up a little bit on some of those restarts and I was thinking, hopefully there’s not another yellow,” Miller admitted. “I saw one on the last lap and I was getting a little nervous. Luckily, on the next restart, I was able to hit the bottom good and slide myself.

I wasn’t really worrying about him,” Miller continued on the subject of McIntosh. “It was just about hitting my marks and focusing on myself without anyone around me. It was tricky there off turn four where it bit me. I almost hit the wall a couple times in lapped traffic there. I just had to figure out how to maneuver around it and try not to slap it that hard, especially later in the race.”

On the final restart, once and for all, nobody had a thing for Miller as he closed the deal out with pinpoint precision to lock down his fourth career USAC victory, 0.771 seconds ahead of runner-up Cannon McIntosh who earned his seventh consecutive podium finish with the series, thus assisting him in expanding his championship point lead from 32 to 39. Kale Drake took third with Justin Grant fourth and Kevin Thomas Jr. rounding out the top-five.

In the early afternoon hours, Daison Pursley was airborne on a flight from Washington to Wisconsin after finishing third the night before with the High Limit Sprint Cars at Skagit Speedway. Throughout the feature at Angell Park, it would be fair to say that he was still flying come feature time where he advanced 13 positions from his 20th starting spot to finish in the seventh position. That earned him the night’s Rod End Supply Hard Charger award.

Initially, Gunnar Setser ran up through the field at Angell Park from 19th to 11th. Forced to the Indy Metal Finishing Work Area with a mud-packed right rear tire, Setser raced his way back through the pack to finish ninth, passing four cars on the final restart alone. That was good enough to earn the Inferno Armor Fire Move of the Night.

In Honest Abe Roofing Qualifying, Jacob Denney set a new Angell Park Speedway USAC National Midget track record with a lap of 14.203 seconds. That broke Bryan Clauson's decade old record of 14.316 set in 2015. Overall, it was Denney's fourth career USAC National Midget fast qualifying time with the series, and his second of the 2025 season.


USAC NOS ENERGY DRINK MIDGET NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP RACE RESULTS: August 31, 2025 – Angell Park Speedway – Sun Prairie, Wisconsin – 1/3-Mile Dirt Oval – 40th Firemen’s Nationals

HONEST ABE ROOFING QUALIFYING: 1. Jacob Denney, 67, Kunz/Curb-Agajanian-14.203 (New Track Record); 2. Cannon McIntosh, 71K, Kunz/Curb-Agajanian-14.245; 3. Kale Drake, 97K, Kunz/Curb-Agajanian-14.246; 4. Gavin Miller, 97, Kunz/Curb-Agajanian-14.278; 5. Mack Leopard, 86x, CBI-14.364; 6. Hayden Reinbold, 19AZ, Reinbold-Underwood-14.376; 7. Brecken Reese, 20Q, Reese-14.410; 8. Steven Snyder Jr., 4, RMS-14.428; 9. Karter Sarff, 7x, Engler-14.440; 10. Drake Edwards, 83, CBI-14.492; 11. Ethan Mitchell, 19m, Bundy Built-14.507; 12. Jakeb Boxell, 14JB, 4 Kings-14.533; 13. Justin Grant, 87, CBI-14.534; 14. Colton Robinson, 67K, Kunz/Curb-Agajanian-14.539; 15. Kevin Thomas Jr., 14, 4 Kings-14.547; 16. Zach Wigal, 40x, McDermand-14.547; 17. Cale Coons, 63, Dooling/Curb-Agajanian-14.565; 18. Rylan Gray, 4R, RMS-14.597; 19. Gunnar Setser, 43, Arnold-14.616; 20. Daison Pursley, 86, CBI-14.711; 21. Zach Boden, 51, Boden-15.157; 22. Mark Chisholm, 56x, Chisholm-15.182; 23. Cody Weisensel, 20, Weisensel-15.712; 24. Parker Jones, 6G, DGRD-NT.

CAR IQ FIRST HEAT: (8 laps, all transfer to the feature) 1. Justin Grant, 2. Zach Wigal, 3. Brecken Reese, 4. Jacob Denney, 5. Drake Edwards, 6. Gavin Miller, 7. Gunnar Setser, 8. Mark Chisholm. 1:59.577

K1 RACEGEAR SECOND HEAT: (8 laps, all transfer to the feature) 1. Cale Coons, 2. Steven Snyder Jr., 3. Colton Robinson, 4. Daison Pursley, 5. Cannon McIntosh, 6. Ethan Mitchell, 7. Mack Leopard, 8. Cody Weisensel. 2:00.306

USAC GEAR THIRD HEAT: (8 laps, all transfer to the feature) 1. Kevin Thomas Jr., 2. Jakeb Boxell, 3. Kale Drake, 4. Rylan Gray, 5. Karter Sarff, 6. Hayden Reinbold, 7. Parker Jones. 1:59.601

FEATURE: (40 laps, starting positions in parentheses) 1. Gavin Miller (3), 2. Cannon McIntosh (5), 3. Kale Drake (4), 4. Justin Grant (7), 5. Kevin Thomas Jr. (8), 6. Hayden Reinbold (2), 7. Daison Pursley (20), 8. Karter Sarff (12), 9. Gunnar Setser (19), 10. Steven Snyder Jr. (11), 11. Jacob Denney (6), 12. Jakeb Boxell (15), 13. Brecken Reese (1), 14. Rylan Gray (18), 15. Zach Wigal (17), 16. Colton Robinson (16), 17. Cale Coons (9), 18. Cody Weisensel (21), 19. Mack Leopard (10), 20. Ethan Mitchell (14), 21. Drake Edwards (13), 22. Parker Jones (22), 23. Mark Chisholm (23). NT

FEATURE LAP LEADERS: Laps 1-2 Brecken Reese, Laps 3-40 Gavin Miller.

**Parker Jones flipped during hot laps. Mark Chisholm flipped during the first heat.

USAC NOS ENERGY DRINK MIDGET NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS: 1-Cannon McIntosh-1055, 2-Justin Grant-1016, 3-Jacob Denney-969, 4-Kale Drake-956, 5-Kevin Thomas Jr.-945, 6-Gavin Miller-944, 7-Steven Snyder Jr.-848, 8-Drake Edwards-832, 9-Logan Seavey-783, 10-Gunnar Setser-747.

USAC PARALLAX GROUP NATIONAL PASSING MASTER POINTS: 1-Kale Drake-208, 2-Briggs Danner-129, 3-Gunnar Setser-122, 4-Kevin Thomas Jr.-118, 5-Logan Seavey-105, 6-C.J. Leary-102, 7-Justin Grant-100, 8-Kyle Cummins-94, 9-Chase Stockon-85, 10-Hayden Reinbold-81.

NEXT USAC NOS ENERGY DRINK MIDGET NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP RACE: September 18, 2025 – Eldora Speedway – Rossburg, Ohio – 1/2-Mile Dirt Oval


CONTINGENCY AWARD WINNERS:

Dirt Draft Hot Laps Fastest Driver: Kale Drake (14.277)
Honest Abe Roofing Fast Qualifier: Jacob Denney (14.203)
Car IQ First Heat Winner: Justin Grant
K1 RaceGear Second Heat Winner: Cale Coons
USAC Gear Third Heat Winner: Kevin Thomas Jr.
Rod End Supply Hard Charger: Daison Pursley (20th to 7th)
Inferno Armor Fire Move of the Night: Gunnar Setser