In a season filled with World of Outlaws vs. High Limit storylines, Sprint Car's Granddaddy of 'Em All, The Knoxville Nationals, went to an 18-year-old track local. Ryan Timms has been a regular at Knoxville, Iowa's Knoxville Raceway in 2025, winning six weekly features. Saturday evening, he became the second youngest Knoxville Nationals winner when he started the 64th annual running of the event on pole and led all 50 laps en route to what was also his first World of Outlaws victory.
The only driver to beat Timms to the pole and a win in Knoxville Nationals history is Kenny Weld, who won his first Knoxville Nationals at the age of 18 years, 11 months, and 14 days in 1964, the third running of the dirt track crown jewel. Timms takes his victory just three weeks before his 19th birthday, on August 26th.
Weld would go on to win three more times in 1965, 1972, and 1973.
Timms locked up the pole with a win in his Wednesday night qualifying race, grabbing 487 of a possible 500 laps. This was Timms' third attempt to make the Saturday show of the Knoxville Nationals, and he exceeded expectations based on prior years' events.
This was the third consecutive year that the polesitter won the Knoxville Nationals by leading all 50 laps, with NASCAR's Kyle Larson achieving this feat in 2023 and 2024.
Timms has been racing the weekly series at Knoxville through 2025, capturing six wins so far this season, and 12 across the country, including at South Dakota's Husets and Minnesota's Jackson Motorplex.
Timms started the feature, which was moved to earlier in the evening to get the race in without weather, next to Carson Macedo, who had grabbed the high-point award on Thursday night, when Kyle Larson won.
Macedo was the only one in Timms' zipcode for portions of the race and came to the halfway break in second.
"I don’t think I had anything for the No. 10, he was incredibly fast," Macedo told DirtVision.
Timms never knew how far ahead he was, as he was battling a ghost car that he felt on the inside and thought he saw on the big screen in the middle of the track.
"I had no idea how big of a lead I had, I kept looking up at the big screen, and I guess I was imagining cars because I kept seeing someone on my inside," Timms told DirtVision.
Rico Abreu and David Gravel made it by Macedo in the closing laps; this is the second time that Macedo has fallen from second at the halfway mark to fourth in the Knoxville Nationals in two years as he attempts to bring the No. 41 Jason Johnson Racing sprint to victory lane for the first time Gravel did in 2019 following the passing of Jason Johnson the year before.
Abreu continues to fight for his first Knoxville Nationals win, but improved upon his prior best finish of seventh in 2023. Abreu also secured his first 36o Nationals win at the track last weekend.
When Timms rolled to the scales, Larson, who's won three of the last four Knoxville Nationals, was the first to greet him. Larson retired from the race after falling back from eighth place in the second half of the 50-lap feature.
Gravel, who made the race by winning Friday's Hard Knox feature, ran from 21st to the third step of the podium. Gravel was hot on Larson's tail to congratulate Timms as well.
"I just want to say congratulations to Ryan Timms, putting together your prelim night and 50 laps in the feature is not easy," Gravel told DirtVision.
Gravel was the hard charger of the night, passing 18 cars to make it to the podium. The defending World of Outlaws champion said that his car was unbelievable in the closing laps of both halves.
"We had a really good car, the second half of those runs, our car was unbelievable," Gravel told DirtVision.
Shark Racing's Logan Schuchart finished fifth, and Hendrick's development driver Corey Day finished sixth.
You Might Also Like
Comments