SOONER THE BETTER: REIMER GOES FULL-TIME FOR 2022 USAC MIDGET SEASON

By: Richie Murray – USAC Media

Columbus, Indiana (January 27, 2022)………After joining Keith Kunz/Curb-Agajanian Motorsports midway through her Rookie season in 2021, Taylor Reimer is all-in for a full season of USAC NOS Energy Drink Midget National Championship racing for the team in 2022.

Currently in her Senior capstone course at the University of Oklahoma and preparing to graduate this spring with a major in Health & Exercise Science and a minor in Business, Reimer has taken a circuitous route to becoming a regular on the series tour.

Her father raced a wide variety of machinery in his day from jet skis to drag cars to micros, so when the time came for then six-year-old Taylor to take the leap and begin her own racing career in the mid-2000s, she took the chance and began her racing career, as so many Oklahoma racers do, on the highly competitive micro sprint ranks at Port City Raceway in her native Tulsa.

By the age of 14, Reimer had racked up enough wins to become the winningest female driver in the history of the 1/8-mile dirt oval.  The next step, or so it seemed, was to continue climbing the ladder in her racing endeavors.  However, with so many interests outside of racing and so little time allotted to do it all, racing was put on the shelf for the time being.

Throughout high school and continuing through college, Reimer actively pursued her academics and cheerleading with gusto all while the racing world carried on in her personal rearview mirror.  Looking back on it all now, Reimer regrets giving up racing during that period of time, however, as it turned out, in that half-a-decade-plus span of time, the racing bug never completely abandoned her.

A couple years back, Reimer came to Port City just to sit in the stands and take in the racing activities as a spectator.  USAC National Midget series regulars, driver Cannon McIntosh and team owner Dave McIntosh, were in attendance with their car that night when they saw Taylor and offered her a shot to get back in the seat of midget and take some laps, just for fun.

When the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic hit in early 2020, and with college courses now being held online and restrictions keeping her from cheerleading activities at University of Oklahoma’s sporting events, that free time Reimer could never seem to find in recent years was now available.

When the opportunity to race with the Dave Mac Motorsports team came about, she jumped at the chance, with no regrets, ultimately making her debut with USAC at Ocala, Florida’s Bubba Raceway Park in February 2021, missing the feature on opening night, but returned on Monday evening by winning her heat and making her first feature appearance.

With all that time away from the wheel and getting acclimated to a completely new discipline, Reimer admitted to enduring a quite large learning curve that required her to adjust to the car on the fly, and on top of it, just getting settled and back into the swing of things.

“Jumping into the midget was a huge challenge, just because of the huge difference in horsepower,” Reimer said.  “Just trying to figure out what worked best for myself and the team, it was a bit of a struggle as it was just trying to get back into racing again.  Gaining that seat time is mainly what I needed, just getting comfortable in the car.”

After making two starts with Dave Mac, Reimer got a shot at competing with Keith Kunz/Curb-Agajanian Motorsports in August for the five-race eastern swing, which saw her break into the top-10 for the first time, twice, with an eighth at Pennsylvania’s Action Track USA and a 10th at Bloomsburg Fair Raceway.

With a record 11 career USAC National Midget entrant titles and 122 feature victories, Reimer knows full well the weight that the Columbus, Ind. based team carries and what an opportunity she has to showcase her ability in the coming year on a full-time basis.

“I’m super grateful to run for them,” Reimer said.  “Everything they do is top-level with their maintenance, and also how they take care of their drivers.  Beau (Binder) is my crew chief and he’s one of the best crew chiefs I’ve had.  He helps me on and off the track, giving me pointers and makes sure that I’m comfortable in the car, which was a huge thing for me.   Their stats show they’ve had so much success.  They make sure I have what I need to be successful, and I think that started to show over the last couple of months, especially during the western swing.”

During the latter stages of the western swing with USAC in November 2021, at Placerville (Calif.) Speedway, Reimer became the sixth woman to record a fast qualifying time with the series.  She earned a solid ninth place finish in that night’s feature, then was part of history in the season finale at Ventura (Calif.) Raceway where she qualified second alongside teammate Kaylee Bryson to form the first ever all-woman front row in USAC history, then equaled her career best finish of eighth mere hours later.

Leaving the past year with her own bit of history gives Reimer the confidence to make even more history in 2022 by becoming the first woman to win a USAC national feature event.  Her current pinned tweet on her personal Twitter page simply reads, “I will win a midget race in 2022.

Reimer’s pursuit of history and the full 37-race series schedule begins on February 11-12 with the season opening Winter Dirt Games XIII at Bubba Raceway Park in Ocala, Fla.