A historic rookie season: Flyin’ Ryan Timms takes sprint car racing by storm

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OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) — Ryan Timms remembers the first time his dad ever put him behind the wheel of a race car.

It was a go-kart, but he recalls not liking it.

“It felt really fast to me, at the time,” he states.

Randy Timms was into racing, though, so Ryan tried again a couple of years later, and he was ready then.

He smiled and continued, “I’m glad I stuck it out.”

Timms grew up at tracks around the country.

He moved up from go-karts to micro sprints, restricted sprint cars, and finally outlaws.

Ryan and his dad raced most of the cars still in the family shop in Oklahoma City, but it wasn’t until they split up and Ryan joined another race team that ‘Flyin’ Ryan’ took off.

Timms recalled, “He got kind of tired of paying to compete, and I got tired of not getting results.”

He’s had more than a year to think about how his driving career has accelerated.

In the midst of a very busy season, a short break means coming home from South Dakota, the headquarters of Leibig Motorsports.

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He’s always busy keeping up with a growing fan base and brushing up on his second favorite sport, golf.

“No pressure or anything,” he said as our cameras captured him making a long putt. “I used to be here all the time when we weren’t racing.”

It was springtime in ’25 that the racing picked up, and he found his groove ahead of a long line of checkered flags.

Car, team, driver all came together for a string of victories at the big track in Knoxville, Tennessee, which culminated in a Knoxville Nationals Victory Lane, the biggest race against the best drivers.

“The Knoxville race was the big one, for sure,” he said.

He followed that up less than a month later with yet another win at the Tuscarora 50, another huge race.

“That one was a lot more surprising,” he admitted.

A few days after we met him, he won again at the Jackson Nationals.

Timms is still, technically, a rookie driver, but only his family treats him like one now.

“Not as bad,” he laughed. “But yeah.”

The sponsorship banner in the old shop might never come down, but the old #5 equipment is slowly dwindling.

“We’re getting rid of it,” said Ryan.

He hardly touches a racing dirt bike that belongs to someone else.

Even on a break, he’s in a pretty good spot.

Home is a circle on the map in the Sooner State.

Flyin’ Ryan Timms knew home appeared to be inside a winner’s circle.