There are more prestigious motorsport events but dammit they ain’t more entertaining than the Chili Bowl Midget Nationals.
That is the biggest takeaway from the past week and a main event ultimately won by Kyle Larson for the third time in six years. Larson led every lap of the 40-lap main event but it was far from uneventful and even downright fortuitous.
Here is a rundown of everything relevant thing that happened on Championship Saturday.
It was written, and tweeted, numerous times over but if you only watch the Chili Bowl on Saturday night, it is impossible for you to understand everything that makes it so special. Purely from an event standpoint, for those who attend all week, you’ll never meet a stranger.
There are 400 cars in that building transported by around 350-odd haulers and you will never want food or drink while in that building. The sense of hospitality is off the charts as long as you respect the work being done.
Chili Bowl is just a big party with race cars as the excuse to gather.
For most, there are only two days of racing when the building is open across six days, Championship Saturday and the one preliminary qualifying night over one of the five weekdays. The rest of the week is just an excuse to celebrate community, communion and a shared love of cars that go fast in circles.
The whole hygiene thing could stand to be improved a little bit though. Let’s just make something really clear. Washing your hands in a building full of a thousand people wiping their noses in January is not the woke agenda.
It’s common freaking sense.
As for the racing, the format is the ultimate meritocracy, and the driver who wins on Championship Saturday will have earned it from every conceivable angle. Again, if you’re just tuning in at some point during the Alphabet Soup without realizing how a driver started where they did, it’s a disservice to appreciating Chili Bowl on the whole.
Every single heat race pill draw, lap, pass and incident carries so much dang consequence.
Sure, maybe Christopher Bell is right and that he ‘just wasn’t good enough on Saturday’ but his Chili Bowl was largely over on Thursday night when he got passed for a lock-in. That corner could have had him either starting in the top-5 for winning that race, the top-10 for finishing second or from a B-Main in getting passed.
Holy crap, the consequence.
There were so many name drivers with race winning teams who just didn’t lock themselves in and it cost them the race. Buddy Kofoid finished third in his prelim, a herculean effort coming back from 18th, due to an incident in his heat race.
But then he drove from 14th to 6th and left you wondering what could have been had the prelim night gone a little more smoothly. But again, everything has consequence and where a driver started Saturday was a direct reflection of their performance, execution and a little bit of old-fashioned luck.
It makes watching the entire event a must-see television event.
Someone tweeted on Saturday ‘what is the point of showing on Saturday if you have no choice of making a headline feature’ and that misses the point of the entire event. Jack France transferred out of five features before his elimination, coming up two spots short of becoming just the second driver to race in six mains throughout the day in history.
You don’t have to win a Golden Driller to make yourself a star and earn headlines throughout the day. The Englishman went P, O, N, M and L and gained 25 spots.
Ty Gibbs was making his debut in the event and even agreed that for his purposes, he’d rather have started much further back and had the chance to race in numerous features because that would be an experience. And racing, well, it’s fun.
“I wish I was in the Q so I could just keep going,” Gibbs said.
Exactly!
Jason McDougal went from an I-Main to his corresponding D-Main in 2021, ultimately getting wrecked out of the transfer spot by Ryan Bernal. It was a star making performance of a different kind and one that even Bell ribbed Bernal about on Thursday night after they both podiumed in their prelim.
Everyone has something to race for an it’s wonderful.
Anyway, Larson won the feature but he did it in the most Kyle Larson way possible, running the so-called Larson Line literally on the wall, leading every lap while pounding the frontstretch wall and even monster trucking over Brenham Crouch’s spun out right front tire.
Listen, Larson was the rightful winner, and while it’s fair to ask the question about whether he should have been the cause of the caution when he stripped the banner all the way down, that’s not even the rule.
Bernal literally did the same thing on Thursday and wasn’t penalized for it. You have to appreciate the consistency of the call in that regard.
A lot of the noise comes from the fact that it’s just Larson, him winning again, and people really wanting to see Daison Pursley win the race. He was literally paralyzed from the neck down after a 2021 crash at Arizona Speedway and pushed through rehab to become the USAC champion this year and a hometown hero in this building.
Pursley is going to be a star in 410 Sprint Cars starting this year and will challenge for his own ‘Little Golden Guy’ as he calls it for years to come.
Larson meanwhile led the NASCAR Cup Series in wins last year, regardless of what happened in the playoffs, led every lap of the Knoxville Nationals in winning that race for a third time and took his third Chili Bowl. He also looked every bit like someone who could challenge for an Indianapolis 500 win in future seasons if he sticks with it beyond this May.
‘Yung Money’ is one of the greatest talents in the world, no matter how loathe Europe is to admit it, with an unrivaled diversity and a method to success that resembles madness. Sure, he’s prone to a overaggressive mistakes like what happened at the Indianapolis Road Course two years ago. Yeah, drilling the wall the way he did could have bit him the way it did Steven Snyder Jr. in Tulsa Shootout or even however he saved the car on two wheels in the pole shuffle.
But he is the most entertaining race car in the world and he just won the most entertaining race in the world for a third time.
One last anecdote before closing.
While Larson versus Pursley and Landon Brooks was worth the money, it was disappointing that Bell wasn’t able to get in the mix and provide a show that a lot of people wanted to see.
Bell is quick to dismiss the notion of a rivalry, even providing strays during the opening ceremony press conference on Monday.
“The rivalry has kind of been pinned on us by people like Matt Weaver, and everybody else” Bell said laughing. “Kyle and I, we’ve obviously been fierce competitors and we’ve had a lot of great races and heartbreaking losses on both of sides.
“I think, hopefully it continues.”
The strays aside, Larson winning three Golden Drillers ties him with Bell and is one less than Kevin Swindell and two less than Kevin Swindell. Larson has a chance, at 32 years old, to break that record.
And yet, unprovoked, the Swindells are not the primary goal.
“I’m not as much concerned about the end number as I am doing a good job,” Larson said. “Hopefully, I can keep winning. It’s great to have three so I can be tied with Bell more than anything. That’s what I think about.”
And then with a smile.
“I would love to get to four to have something on him in this building. It’s cool. I’m glad to have been back here in this building this week to put in a full effort.”
But yes, Matt Weaver is creating the rivalry between them!
Ha.
Here’s to a decade-plus more of Bell and Larson continuing to make the Chili Bowl Midget Nationals the most entertaining motorsports event in the world alongside characters like McDougal, Thomas Meseraull and Tanner Thorson.
And also the great racers like Kofoid, Pursley, Logan Seavey, Justin Grant and Shane Golobic.
Here’s to the heroic everymen like Jack France.
Chili Bowl rules, except for when people don’t wash their hands. Please do better about that. Rico Abreu agrees.
