Tulsa Oklahoma 15th January 2014
Night two at the Chili Bowl and more of the heavy hitter take to the track. Wednesday night and the Kunz Toyota Team had the Abreu car ready to race . the 5 times Chili Bowl winner and Outlaw warrior Sammy Swindell back in the midget for his chance to win a sixth title .
Caleb Armstrong beats Sammy Swindell at the Chili Bowl
Swindell, Abreu and Caleb Armstrong all started with heat wins .Swindell and Armstrong advanced to the major qualifier while Abreu and Jerry Coons Jr had to race through B Mains to make their way into the night’s preliminary final.
Armstrong shared the front row with Chris Andrew. Armstrong made the best start and lead into lap 2 when the race went under an early caution .On the restart Armstrong fell back to fourth behind Brad Loyet and Alex Sewell.
Armstrong fought back quickly and was second by lap sevenand by this time the leaders were facing traffic . Andrews and Armstrong raced ahead of the pack quickly through the early traffic.
Lap 12 was the changing point and Armstrong worked his way past Andrews into the clear .The Andrews challenge came to end on a lap 14 when attempting a slide job for the lead he spun bringing out another caution .From this point on Andrews was a spent force.
Chris Windom was the next to try and challenge Armstrong for the race lead but Armstrong defended and retained his lead.
Another caution on lap 21 this time as Nick Knepper rode over the cushion in turn three while running in fifth and bounced off the wall as the engine said “I had enough “ pouring oil down the front straight and all over corners one and two
The track personnel needed to get the tiller out and ready the track for the restart .There was lots of oil over the track.and it needed to be worked out .
This would be the third restart for Armstrong and on this restart the threat was clear, Swindell had made ground from position13 and was now in fifth place.
The final restart and before us was a 4 lap dash with Swindell sending a massive message to his fans,”I am on for the win”. Suddenly Armstrong had Swindell all over him and his hard fought lead was gone, but the lad from Indiana was not to be out muscled by the veteran racer and raced Swindell tough regaining the lead with run off the cushion on the last corner .The winning margin was 0.441 seconds .
Chris Windom had a solid race to fill the final transfer into the Saturday night Final .Abreu and Yeley were racing for fourth when the pair made contact Yeley ended his night upside down. He was not happy.
Abreu was credited with a fourth place and Brad Loyet fifth.
Caleb Armstrong a worthy winner and for the second night in a row another first time Chili Bowl winner.
Caleb was asked about those final laps .” I saw him (Sammy Swindell) stick his nose in there and I didn’t want to push the issue at first, but then started pushing it, but I didn’t want to jump the curb. It was easy too, as I did it earlier in the race. I just kept on going and ended up winning “
B-Main: 15 Laps – Top 4 advance to A-Feature.
B Feature 1 (15 Laps): 1. 67K-Rico Abreu[3]; 2. 45X-Johnny Herrera[1]; 3. 39T-Payton Pierce[2]; 4. 15-Tim Siner[4]; 5. 14W-Matt Westfall[5]; 6. 6RR-Joe Liguori[7]; 7. 96-Cody Brewer[13]; 8. 83-Hannah Adair[11]; 9. 82-Eric Johnson[8]; 10. 1T-Tony Roney[15]; 11. 15B-Danny Burke[9]; 12. 86-Chris Ennis[12]; 13. 10J-John Hunt[10]; 14. 7K-Robby Parish[14]; 15. 6R-Jody Rosenboom[16]; 16. (DNF) 87R-Jeff Flesher[6]
B Feature 2 (15 Laps): 1. 5-Jerry Coons Jr[1]; 2. 91S-Jeff Stasa[7]; 3. 8V-Jace VanderWeerd[6]; 4. 5C-Colten Cottle[5]; 5. 76M-Brad Noffsinger[2]; 6. 33H-Cameron Hagin[3]; 7. 93H-Harley Hollan[13]; 8. 7F-Sean McClelland[11]; 9. 17J-Chase Johnson[15]; 10. 2X-Ryan Hall[4]; 11. 37F-Chris Guinn[9]; 12. 5$-Danny Smith[10]; 13. 37K-Steve Brown[16]; 14. 92-Brenden Bright[14]; 15. (DNF) 7JR-J.D. Black[8]; 16. (DNF) 84-Scotty Smith[12]
A-Feature: 25 Laps – Top 3 lock into Saturday’s Championship Feature.
Windom Armstrong Swindell
A Feature (25 Laps): 1. 7C-Caleb Armstrong[2]; 2. 1-Sammy Swindell[13]; 3. 3-Chris Windom[4]; 4. 67K-Rico Abreu[17]; 5. 05-Brad Loyet[5]; 6. 26-Shane Golobic[15]; 7. 10-Brad Kuhn[14]; 8. 5-Jerry Coons Jr[18]; 9. 39T-Payton Pierce[21]; 10. 31B-Travis Berryhill[7]; 11. 15W-Brandon Waelti[12]; 12. 66-Shane Cockrum[9]; 13. 8K-Frank Flud[16]; 14. 9P-Parker Price-Miller[6]; 15. 15-Tim Siner[23]; 16. 73X-Trey Marcham[10]; 17. 8V-Jace VanderWeerd[22]; 18. 1ST-J.J. Yeley[11]; 19. 5C-Colten Cottle[24]; 20. 91S-Jeff Stasa[20]; 21. (DNF) 55-Nick Knepper[8]; 22. (DNF) 11CA-Chris Andrews[1]; 23. (DNF) 8-Alex Sewell[3]; 24. (DNF) 45X-Johnny Herrera[19]
Lap Leaders: Chris Andrews (1-11), Caleb Armstrong (12-25)
The Lucas Oil Chili Bowl Nationals presented by General Tire continues with Thursday’s John Christner Trucking Qualifying Night. Races begin at 6:00 P.M. (CT) with Hot Laps at 5:00 P.M
