If you are just a casual fan who tunes into the Chili Bowl Midget Nationals only to watch the main event on Saturday night, it’s a perfectly fine gateway racing drug but you’re also missing out on so much of the magic of the Tulsa Expo Raceway.
Case in point: Thursday night.
Consider what starting Championship Saturday looked like for the top six as they ran inside of 10 laps to go.
Christopher Bell: A
Tanner Thorson: A
Karter Sarff: B
CJ Leary: B
Jacob Denney: B
Ryan Bernal: B
Parker Jones: B
Then came a caution with five laps to go for Casey Shuman flipping in Turns 3 and 4. At this point, Sarff pulled off the track and ultimately found himself set to start Saturday night from an E feature (!!!) after spending all race battling for a lock-in.
Then came a caution with just one lap to go, when Leary and Jones crashed while running third and fourth, Bernal literally bouncing over there as he stayed on the throttle. He would later say he ‘monster trucked’ them.
It was all instinct as he saw his Saturday life flash before his eyes. Kind of a lucky break, no?
“I earned that one,” he said afterwards, sardonically. “I monster trucked both of them cars and didn’t break so I guess lady luck was on my side. … I literally monster trucked both of them and thought, ‘well, now we’re in third, green-white-checkered …”
Leary and Jones went from challenging for a lock-in at best, racing for a premium B spot at most likely to ultimately having to start Championship Saturday from an E feature as well. Fortunes change in an instance in this building.
Up front, Bell went from challenging to retake the lead from Thorson — both locked in — to then having to fend off their locked-in status from Bernal.
Think about it for a second, Bernal went from a fringe B-Main starting spot come Saturday to a green-white-checkered to where he had a puncher’s chance to take the fight to two former winners of the Chili Bowl Midget Nationals.
He missed the bottom completely coming to the checkered flag but hustled his way around the bottom to a photo finish defeat of Bell.
Again, Bell went from trading lock-in spots between him and Thorson to now having to start Championship Saturday no better than 11th should he race his way in from a Last Chance Race. The impactful consequence of every lap, every pass and every moment is just unreal.
Bell knows it and fortunately his three Golden Drillers at home allowed him to appreciate the magic of the moment on Thursday even if it came at his expense.
“This place never disappoints,” Bell said. “You never know how it’s going to top itself and it always finds a way. I can’t get over the white flag lap, literally in 1 and 2, you got Bernal on the bottom, I’m stuck in the middle, Tanner is on the top; that’s what it’s all about.”
Editor’s note: I couldn’t believe it either.
That moment very well likely cost Christopher Bell, who have may have the best prepared car in the building, a chance to tie Kevin Swindell for second on the all-time wins list with four wins. It’s that hard to win from outside of the top-10.
And he’s not even mad about it.
“Dude, I’m just in a different spot in my life right now,” Bell said. “I want to have fun and enjoy it. I’m having the time of my life. I get to drive race cars for a living and drive race cars for fun.”
Bernal says he has watched the magic and heartbreak both from the ramp and behind the steering wheel.
“I saw it first hand with my teammate, Shane (Golobic) on Monday, leading on the white flag lap but a caution came out and Kyle (Larson) got him,” Bernal said.
But, they both made the feature is the difference.
“Anything can happen those last couple of laps,” Bernal said.
Thorson spent the whole race in first or second but that final corner just as easily could have ended with him the one on the outside looking in.
“I definitely think about it,” Thorson said. “We all think about it. We’re racers. But we’re also here to do one job and that’s to win. I want to win more than anyone in this building. We all say that but I want to win more because I build the cars, build custom parts and put in the set-up. I do a lot of different stuff on the side.
“So every position matters more to me, I feel like, because I’m paying for it.”
So now, a dramatic week added another dramatic day, sending Bell to his first B-Main since 2012. He will be joined in Bs by the likes of Buddy Kofoid, Corey Day, Cannon McIntosh and Brent Crews, who all also suffered through the emotional consequence of their respective prelim nights.
Again, it’s going to be really hard to win from outside the top-10, if not downright unlikely, and all of that has been determined by each of these nights with every pass, every crash and every important moment. Chili Bowl is so much more than Saturday night because Saturday night is dictated by the entirety of Chili Bowl.
Every lap matters.
