Highly successful Keith Kunz Motorsports (KKM) had a record ten entries (18% of the 56 car field) at the 2022 USAC National Midget Series finale on November 26 at Ventura Raceway. It is interesting to see which of the 2021 chassis at the same event a year earlier returned and who drove them. In 2022 KKM started identifying their midget chassis as “Bullet ----” with four numbers following (e.g- 1840). Four cars had that designation. Six chassis used the earlier designation DM followed by two numbers (e.g - DM 74).

From oldest to newest Bullet chassis they were: DM 74 driven as No. 71m by rookie Cade Lewis; DM 82 -- No. 97 Brenham Crouch; DM 84 -- No. 25k Taylor Reimer; DM 88 – No. 67 Buddy Kofoid; DM 89 – No. 01 Bryant Wiedeman; DM 98k -- No. 97k Ryan Timms; Bullet 1840 – No. 71p Daison Pursley; Bullet 1841 -- No. 71k - rookie Dominic Gorden; Bullet 1846 -- No. 71 - Kaylee Bryson, and Bullet 1849 -- No. 71e - Mariah Ede. Three of the KKM drivers are females.

So how did the ten KKM midgets fare in the Ventura GP? DM 74 finished the feature in P. 18. DM 82 was 16^th. DM 84 was P 9 in the Last Chance Qualifier. DM 88 flipped and placed 23^rd. DM 89 placed 3^rd. DM 98 was P. 14. Bullet 1840 flipped in heat 3 and was out for the night. Bullet 1841 placed 5^th in a LCQ to just miss the feature. Bullet 1846 flipped and finished 27^th. Bullet 1849 was 11^th in the LCQ. Six of the ten KKM midgets made the 98-lap main event and four missed the 28 car feature. Two KKM midgets flipped.

As usual KKM in 2022 had the same Ventura pit positions just inside the main pit entrance gate. In 2021 KKM six had entries for the Ventura Turkey Night GP. They were identified on the left side of the roll cage as DM 66 (K. Bryson's No. 71), DM 69 (Tanner Carrick's No. 71k), DM 72 (T. Reimer's No. 25k), DM 85 (B. Crouch's No. 97), DM 86 (B. Kofoid's No. 67), and DM 89 (B. Wiedeman's No. 01). Mariah Ede's No. 71e was an experimental chassis without a chassis number and did not start the feature. The other six KKM cars all made the feature. KKM finishes were : P 2 Kofoid, P 5 Bryson, P 8 Reimer, P 11 Wiedeman, P 20 Carrick, and P 25 Crouch.

Southern Californian Tom Malloy, the 2021 Turkey Night GP winning car owner, entered two black and white No. 25 midgets in 2021 for a pair of Nor Cal drivers. Winner Logan Seavey drove No. 25 and Colby Copeland drove 25x. This year Tom entered three black and white No. 25 midgets. Tyler Courtney raced Seavey's TNGP winning No. 25. Rookie Jacob Denney, 17, drove Copeland's No. 25x as 25m in 2022. Personable USAC open-wheel star Emerson Axsom, 18, drove No. 25x, a backup car held in reserve in 2021 according to Malloy's crew chief Jerome Rodela. All three midgets were black with white numbers and Trench Shoring and Malloy on the hood. It was nearly impossible for fans to tell them apart on the track. Scoring has electronic transponders fortunately to ensure accurate scoring because the Malloy cars at times were running in close proximity.

Chad Boat and his major sponsor--PristineAuctions.com--entered four midgets in the 2022 TNGP—Nos 84 Jade Avedisian, 87 Kyle Larson, 89 Mitchel Moles and 89x Jonathan Beason. All four cars made the feature. For the January, 2023 37^th annual Chili Bowl event in Tulsa, Oklahoma Boat entered eight midgets. His drivers were: Nos 81Tanner Holmes ®, 82 Landon Crawley, 84 Jade Avedisian ®-the event rookie of the year, 86 Chase Johnson, 87 Jace Park ®, 88j Jonathan Beason, 89 Chris Windom, and 89x Mitchel Moles.

KKM entered a record 13 midgets in Tulsa. His drivers at the 2023 Chili Bowl were: Nos 01 B. Wiedeman, 24 Rico Abreu, 25k T. Reimer, 67 R. Timms, 67k C. Lewis, 67x Kyle Spence, 71 K. Bryson, 71e M. Ede, 71k D. Gorden, 71w B. Kofoid, 97 B. Crouch, 97k Tom Harris, and 98 T. Carrick. Saturday's 55-lap A-main had three Boat midgets in the field and three KKM cars in the $10,000 to win feature that culminated six nights of racing on the quarter-mile clay track. Boat's drivers and finishing positions were: Moles (P 7), Windom(P 14), and Avedisian (P 18). KKM drivers in the Saturday 55-lap main were: Timms (P 19), Abreu (P 21), and Bryson (P 22).

Driver News: Jade Avedisian, a 16-year old open-wheel rising star, has moved from the Chad Boat No. 84 ride to the KKM No. 71 ride for the Xtreme Outlaw Midget Series presented by Toyota. The 35 race series operates primarily in the Midwest. She will attempt to win the championship this season after winning a pair of midget mains last season in Boat's No. 84. Jade, from Clovis, Calif., won her first national series feature and $5,000 in June 2022 at Jacksonville Speedway (Illinois). She won her second main durin October at I-44 Riverside Speedway in Oklahoma City.

Buddy Kofoid, the 21-year old 2021-22 USAC National Midget champion, is moving up from midget racing to full-time winged sprint car competition. His No. 67 KKM midget ride will be driven by fast-rising star Ryan Timms, 17. from Oklahoma. He is a talented driver similar to Kofoid and former No. 67 driver Kyle Larson. In November 2022, Timms, at age 16 and three months, started first in his family-owned 360 cu. in. sprint car and led all 30 laps of the Ventura main event. Then he started 25^th and finished 14^th in the Turkey Night 98-lap midget feature.

Kofoid won the inaugural High Limit Winged Sprint Car Series (410 cu. in.) race last year at Putnamville, Indiana. The Kyle Larson and Brad Sweet-owned series races on Tuesday and Wednesday nights to avoid conflict with the World of Outlaws and All-Star Sprints. Larson and Sweet want to see sprint car teams race for more money as the WoO and Lucas Oil dirt late model teams have done for years. The High Limit Series will pay at least $23,023 to feature winners and as much as $50,000 to winners. Many 2023 winged sprint car drivers will be chasing more money rather than points by racing in all three series.

In late news, Damion Gardner, the 48-year old ten-time non-wing western 410 cu. in. sprint car champion, has announced his retirement. The certain inductee into the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame in Knoxville, Iowa, became the all-time main event winner in combined CRA, SCRA and USAC-CRA features. He has 108 victories after his September 17 Perris triumph compared to 107 for the late Dean Thompson, the master of Ascot Park. Damion's championship sprinter--the Mark Alexander No. 1--was not at the two 2023 season opening races at Cocopah Speedway (near Yuma, Arizona), so the status of that car remains to be seen. Gardner and the Alexander No. 1 won all three Cocopah features in 2022. Damion's final racing was at the 2023 Tulsa Chili Bowl in the Klatt Racing No. 71g midget.

Maria Cofer, a 23-year old USAC midget driver from NorCal, surprisingly announced her retirement from racing in October 2022. She is the daughter of USAC 1994 USAC Western Midget series champion Johnny Cofer, a ten-time USAC feature winner with his own light blue No. 57 midget. Maria started racing outlaw karts and in 2016 moved into full midgets to go racing with her dad. She used his No. 57 on the family-owned midget. In 2017 Maria won the BCRA midget driving championship and became the first and only female to do so. BCRA started racing in 1939 in the San Francisco Bay Area and for decades helped drivers advance to USAC and Indianapolis 500.

Maria displayed racing talent in the family No. 57. She set fastest qualifying times and raced in features, including the Turkey Night GP and at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway infield clay track. She also raced annually at the Tulsa Chili Bowl. In 2021 the newly formed Abacus Racing two-midget team hired Maria to drive their No. 57 midget with her dad as her crew chief. They raced the Abacus No. 57 in 2022 until Maria decided in October to retire from racing. She had a serious flip in 2017 at the 3/8-mile clay Southern Oregon Speedway and likely suffered a concussion. Headaches have lingered periodically to the present time. She decided that her health is more important than chasing midget victories. Her father, who still holds the USAC Midgets one-lap track record at Ventura Raceway, exited racing in the late 1990s for the same reason. So Maria followed her dad into midget racing and exited the same way—for health reasons. She will be missed.

The Oval Nationals Sprint Car Classic at Perris Auto Speedway is not listed on the track's 2023 schedule. The USAC National Sprint Car Series and western USAC-CRA Series also do not list the event that has been held on the first Thursday, Friday and Saturday of November each year. The 26^th Oval Nationals on November 3-5, 2022 may be the caboose for that storied race won by Brady Bacon last season. The Oval Nationals paid bigger purses than normal and will be missed by all.