Eighteen-Year-Old Ryan Timms Dominant In Knoxville Nationals Title Run

The proper title to my story from Wednesday night should have been "Youth Prevails, Timms Scores Knoxville Nationals Opener", but perhaps my grammatical mistake of instead saying "And The Youth Will Prevail" was a predictor of what was to come on Saturday night as eighteen-year-old Ryan Timms walked away......no, let's make that ran away from the best Sprint Car drivers in the world to earn his first Knoxville Nationals championship in front of a capacity crowd at the Knoxville Raceway.

Earning the pole position with his Wednesday night run from eighth to first in the twenty-five lap feature, Ryan stated that his goal was to beat fellow front row starter Carson Macedo to turn one and then to hold the lead from there and he did just that. Each time pulling away to more than a four second advantage at times to become the first Knoxville Raceway weekly competitor to beat the touring pros in this event since Doug Wolfgang in the late 1970's. And he did it in a way that we haven't seen here for awhile in that he didn't "slide himself" by entering the turns low and then drift to the cushion in order to take away the line of a challenger. Instead, Timms would stick it to the bottom in turns one and two, and then blast around the cushion in turns three and four, only breaking that pattern to get around lapped cars. In other words, the kid knew he was fast and that there was no need to play "defense".

Ryan Timms - Barry Johnson photo

In fact, his only "challenges" of the race came from a couple of close calls with cars at the back of the pack. Just a lap before the fuel stop Timms made some contact with Spencer Bayston in turn four and then when Buddy Kofoid spun up on the cushion in turn four on lap thirty-two, Bayston would clip him ending his evening and Timms had to take evasive action at the last second to come off the cushion and miss Kofoid.

This will go down as the third straight Knoxville Nationals to be won green to checkers and the crowd cheered this one, because they were also treated to a wild scramble for position just behind Timms in the final laps. The youngster needs to savor that cheering crowd because if/when he wins his fourth or fifth one of these some of those will start turning to boos as they have done in the past for names like Kinser and Schatz. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.....

Kyle Larson who had won those last two Nationals in dominating fashion would have his right rear tire explode with just four laps remaining producing a restart that would give the crowd their money's worth even if it wasn't for the lead. Carson Macedo, Rico Abreu, Logan Schuchart, David Gravel and Corey Day would zig and zag and dive and slide through those final four laps battling for second as Timms again pulled away to victory and at the checkers it would be Abreu taking the runner-up honors after starting from seventh.

Gravel, who won Friday's "Hard Knox" main event to start from twenty-first in the championship was nearly lapped by Timms around lap fifteen before his car took off and at the mid-race break he was up to thirteenth. The 2019 Knoxville Nationals champion would then charge up to third at the checkers and followed Larson to be the first two to congratulate the young winner as he crossed the scales after doing some celebration donuts down the front stretch. 

Macedo, who ran second through the first forty-six laps, would slip to fourth while Schuchart finished fifth. Day, who is just nineteen himself, would finish in the sixth spot, Giovanni Scelzi came from fourteenth to seventh, Garet Williamson advanced three positions to finish eighth, Austin McCarl did the same to take ninth and Sheldon Haudenschild slipped from fifth to tenth. Twenty-year-old Cam Martin earned the Rookie-of-the-Nationals title by finishing in the thirteenth position, so there definitely seems to be a changing of the guard when it comes to Sprint Car racing.

Of course you still have sixty-nine-year-old Sammy Swindell who thrilled the crowd again on Saturday by finishing second to another veteran Kerry Madsen in the C-Main and then advancing four spots to finish eighteenth in the B-Main. It was great to see the legend passing cars and look for the 1983 Champion to return in 2026 to compete in his 50th Knoxville Nationals.

The Knoxville Nationals is more than just racing, it is an opportunity to spend time with old friends and new acquaintances celebrating the sport that we all love and it was another great week thanks to these people. Barry, Stephanie and Aidan Johnson for opening their home in nearby Pella to us to make it a much shorter trip to go back and forth to the track. Keith and Sam Nachbor for not only serving up some fantastic food during the week, but also being the best people to sit in the stands with and enjoy the racing. Jack Donlan for once again serving up a fantastic feast on Saturday evening and hosting all of our friends who were able to join us as well, and to my friend since high school John Vantiger who took some time off from promoting his new book to join me for the entire week eating, walking and racing. And of course our thoughts go out to those who were not able to join us this year and we do hope to see them again soon.

As always a big thanks go out to everybody at the Knoxville Raceway, especially to Eric, Angie and the entire staff that takes care of Barry and I from a credentials standpoint as well as to the entire Knoxville Raceway team who put in hours and hours of hard work to make this event the best there is in dirt track racing. I am already looking forward to the 2026 edition of the Knoxville Nationals!