The four preliminary nights of the 28^th Chili Bowl Nationals has past and the stage is set for the Championship night on Saturday at the Tulsa Fairgrounds.

The final preliminary night was full of action , would not be a Chili Bowl without it. The night belonged to Bryan Clauson leaving the 70 odd drivers to fight amongst them.

Heats winners were Chad Boat, Bryan Clauson, Tanner Thorson, Tyler Thomas, Darren Hagen, Dave Darland, Ryan Bernal.Tim McCreadie and Dillon Welch

A tough night at the Bowl for Kasey Kahne with continuing engine troubles while Jac Haudenschild had huge wobble over the cushion while leading that ruined his night.

Jac Haudenschild over the cushion

Positions in the preliminary feature are decided by the points gathered during the nine heats and qualifiers. Tim Mc Creadie won the coveted pole from Bryan Clauson. The top 6 positions in the 24 car final were

1-Tim McCreadie–47X
2-Bryan Clauson–63
3-Ryan Bernal–56R
4-Dave Darland–17R
5-Daryn Pittman–21
6-Jon Stanbrough–2S 

McCreadie held the lead for 9 laps before Clauson worked out the track condition and drove into the lead and set the pattern for what would turn out to be clear and convincing win.

McCreadie leads Clauson at the Chili Bowl

Early caution on lap 8 and another mid race on lap 14 when Michnowicz collect the wall had little effect on Clauson’s race plan.

On the restart Clauson continued to increase his lead over McCreadie who was under threat for second by Darland but the 47x would hold his second place .Daryn Pittman was holding down 4^th position ahead of Tanner Thorson in the Kuntz’s Toyota.

Running fifth entering the final turns, Tanner Thorson looped the Toyota No. 67k in the final turn collecting sixth running Ronnie Gardner in the process. Ryan Bernal was able to scramble by to complete the top five.

Forcing the caution after the leaders had taken the checkered flag, the split finish put the Thorson seventeenth, and Gardner eighteenth.

Clauson’s win his second since 2011 in a preliminary feature at the Chili Bowl sets the USAC Champion up perfectly for the Saturdays big final  and his charge to first Golden Driller.

Clauson Night 4 Winner with Joe Dooling and Rusty Kunz

Clauson, McCreadie and Darland would now join the other nine preliminary placings for the all important draw for positions in the 55 lap main Feature.

At the post race interview Clauson said “The one nice thing about running with Tim is that he’s going to stay on the bottom as long as possible,” said Clauson. “I felt like we had a pretty good car early on. I kind of watched the track as the night went on and it seemed to always take five or six laps for the track to even out. When I jumped up and didn’t really go backwards I was pretty happy.”

A-Feature: 25 Laps – Top 3 lock into Saturday’s Championship Feature.

A Feature (25 Laps): 1. 63-Bryan Clauson[2]; 2. 47X-Tim McCreadie[1]; 3. 17R-Dave Darland[4]; 4. 21-Daryn Pittman[5]; 5. 56R-Ryan Bernal[3]; 6. 17K-Alex Schutte[9]; 7. 15X-Chad Boat[20]; 8. 57M-Matt Mitchell[10]; 9. 51S-Mike Spencer[17]; 10. 56J-Darren Hagen[16]; 11. 39R-Dillon Welch[14]; 12. 91T-Tyler Thomas[13]; 13. 21K-Cory Kruseman[12]; 14. 7B-Austin Brown[15]; 15. 88-Terry Babb[18]; 16. 73N-Nic Faas[11]; 17. 67-Tanner Thorson[7]; 18. 68-Ronnie Gardner[8]; 19. 5N-Jeffrey Newell[23]; 20. (DNF) 85S-Shane Hollingsworth[19]; 21. (DNF) 2ST-Jon Stanbrough[6]; 22. (DNF) 84B-Bobby Michnowicz[24]; 23. (DNF) 21AJ-A.J. Hopkins[21]; 24. (DNF) 1K-Trevor Kobylarz[22]

Lap Leader(s): Tim McCreadie (1-9), Bryan Clauson (10-25)

Line-up – 55 Laps positions 1 to 12 determined by a draw

Start-Driver-Car
1-Caleb Armstrong-7C
2-Christopher Bell-97
3-Bryan Clauson-63
4-Jonathan Beason-8J
5-Zach Daum-5D
6-Sammy Swindell-1
7-Damion Gardner-47
8-Tim McCreadie-47X
9-Chris Windom-3
10-Dave Darland-17R
11-Michael Pickens-63NZ
12-Alex Bright-77

 The defending Champion Kevin Swindell will need to work his through the two B 15 lap feature to gain a transfer to the Chili Bowl 55 Lap final. Kyle Larson, Daryn Pittman and Rico Abreu will have to run in the first 6 in the B1 15 lap Feature to get their start in the Chili Bowl 55 Lap Feature.

The best starting position Kyle Larson and Kevin Swindell can hope for is P12 but 55 laps is a long way around the Chili Bowl track and you can be certain that many stoppages are likely. The winner at the end of the 55 laps will know he has deserved the Chili BowlTitle and the Golden Driller.

The final charge for the Golden Driller gets back underway Saturday at the Tulsa Fairgrounds in Oklahoma

TULSA, Okla. (January 16, 2014)

Three nights of fabulous Chili Bowl racing and three first time preliminary winners. Tonight the 2013 USAC Champion Christopher Bell joined Beason and Armstrong as first time winners.

The Oklahoma boys have won two of the three features. Right from his first heat Bell and  Kunz/Toyota/ Beast team set the tone for the night but as impressive as Bell was the performance of defending Champion Kevin Swindell would have sent a strong message that he was not yet done with this Championship.

The Kunz Toyota Team with Christopher Bell

After a flat put him out of his heat the young Swindell had to overcome a 13^th starting position in the C Feature and the B Feature to find his way to the night’s major final. Swindell’s Feature race was equally sensational bringing the Team car home in fourth place after starting 17^th.

Bell drove the Kunz Toyota perfect, lapped traffic and the race long challenge from Damion Gardiner were never a threat to the USAC Champion and he crossed 2.150 seconds ahead of Gardiner.

There was a late race rush on Pickens by Swindell but the New Zealander was able to keep the defending Champion in fourth place and in the process earns a spot in the Saturday nights final…

 Bell the 2013 USAC Champion from Oklahoma and now with his first Chili Bowl Feature win under his belt answered questions from the media about how he felt after his win.

Christopher Bell “The Chili Bowl is the race to me. If there was one race I could run, it would be here, especially with it being in my home state. I guess this is one of the few times I get to race in Oklahoma, which is around my home crowd; it really is something special to me.” Bell continues ““There was one time I passed the first lapped car and then he (Damion) moved to the bottom because he had been running the top and then he started keeping up with me,” said Bell of Gardner closing in. “I kept seeing his nose down there and I was like ‘Aw crap, Damion is down there’.”

Bell did his time  racing in the POWRi Micro Series and his spectacular success in the Kunz Toyota/Beast Team made him an early choice amongst the fans and media to take out the 2014 Chili Bowl Nationals. Chris Bell has started his Chili Bowl Campaign in the most positive manner possible

B-Main: 15 Laps – Top 4 advance to A-Feature.

B Feature 1 (15 Laps): 1. 39-Kevin Swindell[13]; 2. 7M-Kevin Ramey[2]; 3. 15H-Sam Hafertepe Jr[8]; 4. 81-Heath Duinkerken[4]; 5. 91B-Kevin Bayer[6]; 6. 27R-Kyle O’Gara[5]; 7. 75X-Landon Simon[14]; 8. 77K-Kevin Olson[15]; 9. 35T-Tyler Robbins[16]; 10. 21H-Ty Hulsey[11]; 11. 05J-Jason Johnson[7]; 12. 56X-Mark Chisholm[12]; 13. (DNF) 23-Jimmy Light[10]; 14. (DNF) 17-Michael Koontz[3]; 15. (DNF) 19P-Patrick Stasa[1]

B Feature 2 (15 Laps): 1. 35S-Matt Sherrell[3]; 2. 19S-Richard VanderWeerd[6]; 3. 62-Taylor Simas[8]; 4. 37-Brady Short[1]; 5. 6-Ricky Stenhouse Jr[13]; 6. 71S-Sheldon Haudenschild[5]; 7. 33-Davey Ray[2]; 8. 25J-Matt Juhl[7]; 9. 43-Dakoda Armstrong[12]; 10. 4A-Aaron Pierce[11]; 11. 6A-David Gough[10]; 12. 82H-Mike Hess[9]; 13. 69-A.J. Fike[15]; 14. 7J-Shawn Jackson[14]; 15. (DNF) 2B-Bill Balog[4]; 16. (DNF) 11C-Chett Gehrke[16]

A-Feature: 25 Laps – Top 3 lock into Saturday’s Championship Feature.

A Feature (25 Laps): 1. 97-Christopher Bell[1]; 2. 47-Damion Gardner[2]; 3. 63NZ-Michael Pickens[4]; 4. 39-Kevin Swindell[17]; 5. 25B-Steve Buckwalter[7]; 6. 56L-Danny Stratton[9]; 7. 11A-Andrew Felker[8]; 8. 24-Tracy Hines[6]; 9. 15D-Andrew Deal[5]; 10. 7M-Kevin Ramey[19]; 11. 93-Dustin Morgan[11]; 12. 8L-Harli White[10]; 13. 11-Chase Stockon[14]; 14. 17S-Dominic Scelzi[13]; 15. 57B-Chad Boespflug[12]; 16. 19S-Richard VanderWeerd[20]; 17. 35S-Matt Sherrell[18]; 18. 62-Taylor Simas[22]; 19. 81-Heath Duinkerken[23]; 20. 15H-Sam Hafertepe Jr[21]; 21. 37-Brady Short[24]; 22. 3T-Tim Barber[16]; 23. 5E-James Edens[3]; 24. 7L-Layne Himebaugh[15]

Lap Leader(s): Christopher Bell (1-25)

Gardiner ,Bell,Pickens

For all the excitement of Bells first Chili Bowl win view the video @ youtu.be/7uJriH2G9Co?a

The Lucas Oil Chili Bowl Nationals presented by General Tire continues with Friday’s Vacuworx Global Qualifying Night. Races begin at 6:00 P.M.

  Tulsa Oklahoma 15^th 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

The Chili Bowl –Oklahoma’s Beason  Wins

The Hard 8 Team

 Tulsa Oklahoma January 14 2014

They say come in from the cold and that ‘s what race fans did in huge numbers as the Fairground at Tulsa filled and the expected heat from the Chili Bowl race cars pushed the cold to one side .

The interest in the Chili Bowl, the biggest race on the Midget Speedcar calendar has a hypnotic effect on racers; they have a need to compete

Record entries included the current World of Outlaws Champion Daryn Pittman, Joey Saldana together with NASCAR stars Ricky Stenhouse, Kasey Kahne and JJ Yeley.

The Warren CAT Preliminary night is all about securing the most number of points but there is always the bonus of passing points.

The gathering of points was squarely on the mind of Jonathan Beason and his Hard 8 Team as they started their quest for his first win in a Chili Bowl Preliminary. Beason gained the highest number of points in his heat and qualifiers to enable him to win the covet pole position for the 25 lap Feature.

We are reminded that it was almost 2 years since Jonathan’s friend and team mate Donnie Ray Crawford passed away. Jonathon’s win in the Feature was a tribute to his friend.

The field for the final feature was tough; Kyle Larson, Alex Bright and Zach Daum were among the heavy hitter in the feature.

Beason from Oklahoma jumped quickly and held the race lead from the start to finish. Bright and Daum were busy with each other while Kyle Larson was cutting his way fast towards the lead. At time on the Tulsa track traffic can get very rough but Beason dealt with each lapped car quickly, never really coming under attack from the 2013 POWRi Champ Daum or Bright.

Beason, Daum and Bright will now move directly into the Saturday final while the remainder will rely on their points gained from the program.

Jonathan Beason at the post race interview was asked how he felt “Asked about his level of nervousness getting through the feature, Beason replied, “I was really worried. I race 10 times a year now. This was my second midget race this, well, I guess this would be my first one this year. I haven’t really dealt with lapped traffic like these guys have. I was worried but thankfully; I saw their noses a couple of times, but I figured lapped cars were going to be in their way too “

Jonathan Beason and his #8

Earlier in the night Kyle Larson show just how dominating he can be with his heat win and the win in the Race of Champions, but Kyle will be watching the points closely over the week as he desperately wants a place in the Saturday nights final.

Vacuworx Global VIROC V Race of Champions (20 Laps): 1. 71K-Kyle Larson [6]; 2. 47-Damion Gardner [3]; 3. 97-Christopher Bell[4]; 4. 05-Brad Loyet[2]; 5. 24-Tracy Hines[11]; 6. 5-Jerry Coons Jr[7]; 7. 21K-Cory Kruseman[5]; 8. 71-Kasey Kahne[1]; 9. 63-Bryan Clauson[15]; 10. 1-Sammy Swindell[13]; 11. 39-Kevin Swindell[9]; 12. 1ST-J.J. Yeley[14]; 13. 15X-Chad Boat[12]; 14. (DNF) 47X-Tim McCreadie[10]; 15. (DNF) 4AU-Mathew Smith[8]

 Feature (25 Laps): 1. 8J-Jonathan Beason[1]; 2. 5D-Zach Daum[3]; 3. 77-Alex Bright[2]; 4. 05T-Gary Taylor[7]; 5. 71K-Kyle Larson[16]; 6. 71C-Shane Cottle[5]; 7. 16-Thomas Meseraull[20]; 8. 51J-R.J. Johnson[15]; 9. 7JM-Joey Moughan[10]; 10. 99-Brady Bacon[18]; 11. 4J-Tim Crawley[9]; 12. 44-Don Droud Jr[11]; 13. 39C-Joey Saldana[6]; 14. 2ND-Jeb Sessums[22]; 15. 50-Daniel Adler[13]; 16. 55F-Taylor Ferns[19]; 17. 38-Billy Wease[23]; 18. 7A-Dalton Armstrong[12]; 19. 17E-Blake Edwards[24]; 20. 19-Steven Drevicki[21]; 21. 1W-Paul White[17]; 22. 4AU-Mathew Smith[14]; 23. (DNF) 98-P.J. Jones[8]; 24. (DNF) 11W-Tyler Courtney[4]

The crowds will back for more on Wednesday when the  Chili Bowl Nationals continue with the River Spirit Casino Qualifying night.70 drivers booked in , Wednesday will see Sammy Swindell,Rico Abreu ,Jerry Coons jr  , Chris Windom and JJ Yeley join 65 others chasing points  .Racing begins at 6pm(CT) with hot laps .