Chili Bowl Finals, Jan 14 2006 2006 January 18
The last day of the Chili Bowl lived up to all expectations. The races started at about 1:00 PM with the first of two K mains. One of the best things about the Chili Bowl is watching people proceed up the alphabet. For those not familiar with the Chili Bowl, they start with the lowest letter of the alphabet they need, and if you finish in the top 3 to 5 positions (depending on the race) you get to move up one letter. Which letter main a driver starts at is determined in the preliminary nights. So, lets say Joe Racer qualified on Thursday night for the K main, if he finished in the top 4, he’d advance to the J main, and then if he again finished in the top 4 again, he’d advance into I main, and so on.
Early in the day’s races, Bryan Gard and Joe Walker both competed in six features, climbing from the K Mains all the way to the F Mains. Gard actually even won the G main and had he not tangled in the F, he may have even gone further. Chili Bowl rookie Wayne Johnson then took the spotlight – advancing all he way from the F main to the championship A main. Unfortunately for Wayne, he was the second car out of the A-main. But still, what a show these three guys put on!
The A-main saw Jay Drake and Cory Kruseman start on the front row. Northeast drivers in the A main were Steve Bulkwalter (started 11′th) and Tim McCreedie (started 10′th). Steve moved up to about 7′th place before a fuel line came off ending his day, but Timmie stole the show. For a while Jay Drake, Corey Kruseman, Sammy Swindell and Timmy McCreedie were all battling with the win. Eventually Timmie took the lead and Sammy made it to second, and it looked like Sammy was going to challenge McCreedie for the win, but Sammy had a tire go flat and he pulled into the pits. Towards the end of the race, Timmy started to build up a little lead and went on for the win. Not bad for a DIRT modified/dirt Late Model driver who was racing a midget for only the second time. As I mentioned he came from 10′th so he earned the win. Timmy basically out-drove Jay Drake and Corey Krusseman but not over driving the track. While Drake and Kruseman where running hard through the corners, Timmy just took what the track gave him. He basically crawled through the first 2/3′ds of the corners and then gassed it down the straightways. He was going “Put … Put… Put … Vroooom!” and it worked for him. Anyway, it was a great race and it was great to see a northeast driver take home the win! I can’t wait to next years Chili Bowl!
My racing viewing stats for 2006 after the last night of the Chili Bowl are:
Races: 4
Tracks: 1 (0 new)
States: 1 (0 new)