Abreu strikes at Chili Bowl night two
Refreshed from his racing stint down under Rico Abreu picked up the three aces in the River Spirit Qualifying Night with his heat win, qualifier win and the preliminary Feature triumph
Abreu on hi s way to winning night two at the Chili Bowl
Credit Buck Monson
The Bowl has a Toyota feeling about it with first Larson and now Abreu taking the praise of the massive Bowl Crowd and now the pressure will move onto teammate Christopher bell when it ‘s his turn to fire his Beast Toyota looking for 3 from three for the Kunz Toyota Team .
Abreu started out of position 6 and found early pace to advance to 4th on the opening lap. Windom had the early race lead from Marcham and Blake Hahn.
Abreu found the cushion early and soon found his way around both Marcham and Hahn. Lap 15 and the cushion work by Abreu soon paid dividends as he managed move past the early leader Chris Windom.
The 2014 USAC Champion and his little Beast Toyota then controlled the race to cross the strip 2.75 sec ahead of Chris Windom .Blake Hahn looked likely to get second but as the race entered the final laps a fast finishing J.J Yeley raced wheel to wheel with Hahn and it was only in the last two corners that Yeley managed to get that final drive out of the corner to edge Hahn from third and the transfer spot into the Championship Final.
83 cars started the night two preliminary and 11 drivers flipped over making 21 so far for the Bowl Nationals. All driver were ok after their experience . The last to flip on the night was Alex Decamp
Abreu raced with confidence and always looked in command but the apart from Rico the night belonged to the old stager Sammy Swindell. Sammy’s night started with a black fag for a lost muffler making the 5times Bowl Champion work through D , C, and B Features before having the chance to qualify. Swindell was the master , a stallion against a lot of ponies as he made his way into the A Final .Starting from P 18 Swindell managed to get to 5th and just missed the transfer spot During the night Swindell passed 45 cars.
Sammy Swindell charges his way to the A Final
credit Buck Monson
Abreu was asked after the race about his mindset in the late stages of the race, Abreu replied, “Don’t crash. You get those lapped cars running side-by-side in front of you then all you worry about is the guy behind you running you down.”
Windom Abreu Yeley at post race interview
Photo- Chili Bowl Nationals
Third place JJ Yeley at the post race interview “You have to run hard no matter what when you’re here. The race track got really treacherous and you had to be smooth. I think he [Blake] was trying to regain maybe the spot he had given up there, and obviously when you are coming down to the last couple of laps, you are going to do everything you can to get in that top-three,” commented Yeley of his final lap battle with Blake Hahn.
A-Feature: Top 3 advance to Saturday’s A-Feature.
A Feature (25 Laps): 1. 97-Rico Abreu[6]; 2. 63K-Chris Windom[1]; 3. 1ST-J.J. Yeley[4]; 4. 8K-Blake Hahn[3]; 5. 1-Sammy Swindell[18]; 6. 73T-Trey Marcham[2]; 7. 17C-Casey Shuman[8]; 8. 51X-Colby Copeland[23]; 9. 91T-Tyler Thomas[9]; 10. 11W-Brady Bacon[13]; 11. 92-Brenden Bright[16]; 12. 68W-Jake Swanson[5]; 13. 5E-James Edens[19]; 14. 1T-Tony Roney[7]; 15. 88J-Jace VanderWeerd[17]; 16. 9E-Brody Roa[24]; 17. 38-Justin Grant[10]; 18. 19L-Landon Hurst[21]; 19. 37X-Tim Kent[22]; 20. 66-Shane Cockrum[11]; 21. 55D-Nick Drake[20]; 22. 7B-Austin Brown[14]; 23. (DNF) 75X-Travis Berryhill[12]; 24. (DNF) 62T-Taylor Simas[15]
Lap Leader(s): Chris Windom 1-14; Rico Abreu 15-25;
Night three is the John Christner Trucking Qualifying Night
This Chili Bowl report is supported by the December issuse of Flat Out Magazine . All the open wheel action from the Staes and down under . You can order by going to our Flat out Pge on this site . Secure payments by Palpay
December issue
