Buddy Kofoid passed Kevin Thomas Jr. for the lead on lap 13 on the way leading the final 18 laps in winning the USAC NOS Energy Drink National Midget Series\u2019 Jason Leffler Memorial at Bakersfield Speedway at Kevin Harvick\u2019s Kern Raceway Tuesday night.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The victory is the 45th national midget feature win for Kofoid, all coming with Keith Kunz Motorsports (KKM) and Toyota. The two-time (2021-2022) USAC national midget champion has since made the transition to the World of Outlaws Sprint Car championship where he was the series runner-up this year for the Toyota-powered Roth Motorsports team.<\/p>\n
Starting from the pole, Thomas Jr. immediately moved into the lead, followed by Daison Pursley, while Kofoid started the race in sixth, but quickly began his move up through the field taking over the fifth position on lap one, then up to fourth on the following lap.<\/p>\n
Kofoid would move into third on lap four and into second by lap seven when he began to run down Thomas Jr. By lap 12, Kofoid had reeled him in and pulled side by side as he was attempting to pass through turn three and four only to see a caution flag wave.<\/p>\n
On the restart, Kofoid would make his move running the top side of the track, passing Thomas down the back straight to take the lead. He\u2019d quickly pull away from the field before another caution waved on lap 15.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Kofoid would bring the field back to green, followed by Thomas Jr. and KKM\u2019s Jacob Denney. Kofoid would open up a one-second lead by lap 18. Behind him, Denney would take over second on lap 21. From there on, it was all Kofoid, stretching out as much as a 1.294 second lead late in the race as he would go on to take the checkered flag with Denney finishing second.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Rookie Steven Snyder gave Toyota three drivers in the top five with a fifth-place finish.\u00a0Pursley would place sixth, followed by Kale Drake in seventh, Justin Grant in eighth and Brecken Reese in tenth. Series point leader Cannon McIntosh finished 14th.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The USAC NOS Energy Drink National Midget Series closes out the 2025 campaign with the 84th running of the ARP Turkey Night Grand Prix Saturday night at Ventura Raceway with McIntosh, Grant and Denney all still in the running for the championship.<\/p>\n
Quotes:<\/p>\n
Buddy Kofoid, Keith Kunz Motorsports Mobil 1 Toyota: \u201cThis is pretty special. i feel better in a midget than I have in the last couple of years since I\u2019ve been away. Everyone here at KKM does a tremendous job. At the beginning of the day, the bottom was smoother and feeling good. I just kept running the top and it kept getting better and better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Toyota-Powered Drivers Bakersfield Speedway Results<\/p>\n
Buddy Kofoid \u2013 1st<\/p>\n
Jacob Denney \u2013 2nd<\/p>\n
Steven Snyder \u2013 5th<\/p>\n
Daison Pursley \u2013 6th<\/p>\n
Kale Drake \u2013 7th<\/p>\n
Justin Grant \u2013 8th<\/p>\n
Brecken Reese \u2013 10th<\/p>\n
Cannon McIntosh \u2013 14th<\/p>\n
Gavin Miller \u2013 15th<\/p>\n
Carson Macedo \u2013 16th<\/p>\n
Karter Sarff \u2013 17th<\/p>\n
Ty Gibbs \u2013 18th<\/p>\n
Ronnie Gardner \u2013 20th\u00a0<\/p>\n
Drake Edwards \u2013 23rd<\/p>\n
Toyota Drivers 2025 USAC Results (Full-time drivers)<\/p>\n
Drivers<\/p>\n
Starts<\/p>\n
Wins<\/p>\n
Top 3<\/p>\n
Top 5<\/p>\n
Top 10<\/p>\n
Career Nat\u2019l Wins\u00a0with Toyota Power<\/p>\n
Cannon McIntosh<\/p>\n
22<\/p>\n
5<\/p>\n
10<\/p>\n
14<\/p>\n
19<\/p>\n
56<\/p>\n
Justin Grant<\/p>\n
22<\/p>\n
3<\/p>\n
6<\/p>\n
12<\/p>\n
14<\/p>\n
17<\/p>\n
Jacob Denney<\/p>\n
22<\/p>\n
3<\/p>\n
9<\/p>\n
10<\/p>\n
16<\/p>\n
20<\/p>\n
Gavin Miller<\/p>\n
22<\/p>\n
3<\/p>\n
6<\/p>\n
7<\/p>\n
15<\/p>\n
10<\/p>\n
Kale Drake<\/p>\n
22<\/p>\n
2<\/p>\n
6<\/p>\n
8<\/p>\n
16<\/p>\n
3<\/p>\n
Drake Edwards<\/p>\n
22<\/p>\n
1<\/p>\n
3<\/p>\n
6<\/p>\n
13<\/p>\n
1<\/p>\n
Steven Snyder<\/p>\n
22<\/p>\n
0\u00a0<\/p>\n
2<\/p>\n
6<\/p>\n
12<\/p>\n
0<\/p>\n
Toyota PR<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Buddy Kofoid passed Kevin Thomas Jr. for the lead on lap 13 on the way leading the final…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":71115,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[151,153,152,34113,14610,14396,9027,425,14613,14614,23630,40156],"class_list":["post-71114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield-headlines","tag-bakersfield-news","tag-jr","tag-kevin-harvick","tag-motorsports","tag-racing","tag-series","tag-speedway","tag-sprint","tag-toyota","tag-usac"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71114\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}