The Chili Bowl Race Week Starts Tonight—Here’s What You Need to Know

Cameron Neveu

Tonight, drivers will embark on the roughest road in motorsports. Those who are successful will work their way up from race to race to make one of the 24 spots in the starting field for Saturday night’s main event at the Chili Bowl, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It’s been an annual winter event since 1987, held in the massive SageNet Center, originally built to hold oil drilling rigs.

It’s large enough to house a quarter-mile oval dirt track, grandstands for 15,000 spectators—good seats are sold out years in advance—as well as a massive trade show and room for a lot of 18-wheelers.

Cameron Neveu

There are 390 drivers entered, to be pared down to that lucky group of 24. Officials use the alphabet to name the qualifying races, with two races per letter, all the way down to P, and possibly even Q. Here’s how it works: There will be, as stated, two P main races of 10 laps apiece. The top six drivers from the two P mains move to the O mains. The top six drivers from the O mains advance to the N mains. And so on.

There are always some motorsports VIPs racing at the Chili Bowl, which was, incidentally, named for a food company that was an early sponsor of the event. This year, though, the VIP meter is off the charts.

Some top drivers are coming over from NASCAR, including back-to-back-to back winner Christopher Bell, who won from 2017 to 2019. Bell’s day job is racing in the NASCAR Cup series for car owner Joe Gibbs. As an Oklahoma native, Bell is a fan favorite.

Kyle Larson, who drives a Cup car for Hendrick Motorsports, won in 2020 and 2021. Larson was so pumped about getting his first Chili Bowl win that he sort of bit the hand that feeds him during the winner interview: “Sorry NASCAR and Daytona, but this is the biggest (expletive) win I’ve ever had. This is badass. I’ve spent almost half my life trying to win this thing. It’s an amazing feeling.” Which endeared him to dirt track fans, but not so much to NASCAR’s management.

Kyle Busch is attempting to make his first Chili Bowl start; the Richard Childress Racing Cup star is driving a midget that he owns.

Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., came from open-wheel dirt racing, mostly sprint cars, and he was very good at it. This will be the 18th start for the HYAK Motorsports NASCAR Cup driver. In eight of those 17 races, he’s made it to the main event.

Cameron Neveu

Ty Gibbs, grandson of Joe Gibbs, drives for his Cup team, but is attempting his first Chili Bowl. He has some dirt-track experience and made his midget debut at the famed Turkey Night Grand Prix at California’s Ventura Raceway, which is bigger than the Chili Bowl’s track, but not by a whole lot.

Though J.J. Yeley may be thought of as a NASCAR Cup backmarker, racing for several teams often in the same year, he’s an excellent dirt racer of long standing in these bullrings. This is his 29th Chili Bowl, making the Saturday night show eight times. For those who think it’s impossible to make the big race after starting way back in the huge field, in 2004 Yeley moved up 69 spots, from the F main race to finish third in the championship race.

Josh Bilicki has made over 200 starts in various NASCAR series, most recently for MBM Motorsports in the Cup series. Bilicki is racing in the Chili Bowl for his third straight year.

Cameron Neveu

Young Brent Crews, a veteran of the ARCA series, will race in NASCAR’s Craftsman Truck series in 2025 for Tricon. He’s competing in his second Chili Bowl this week. And while Corey Day doesn’t have an extensive NASCAR resume, that is likely to change as he just signed a development deal with Hendrick Motorsports. A dirt specialist, he’s racing in his fourth Chili Bowl, after finishing an impressive third last year.

Also, Hendrick Motorsports racer Alex Bowman is fielding four cars in the race for other drivers; Bowman missed multiple Cup races in 2023 after injuring his back in a sprint car crash. After that, Bowman swore off dirt-track racing, likely at the behest of car owner Rick Hendrick.

Turning from NASCAR to IndyCar, Indianapolis 500 and IMSA driver Katharine Legge is making her midget debut this year at the Chili Bowl. It’s obviously her year for trying new things; the 44-year-old Brit will also be racing in the ARCA stock car race next month at Daytona International Speedway.

She’s racing for the same midget team as IndyCar driver Santino Ferrucci, who had 10 IndyCar top-10 finishes for A.J. Foyt last season and made his Chili Bowl debut in 2021.

Cameron Neveu

Of course, dirt track fans will recognize plenty of Chili Bowl drivers this year, including Logan Seavy, who won the last pair of Chili Bowl races, and 69-year-old Sammy Swindell, who is the winningest driver at the Chili Bowl with five victories. His son, Kevin, won four straight times from 2010 to 2013, but never got a chance to tie his dad because he was paralyzed in a sprint car crash in 2015 at the Knoxville Nationals, but he still operates a race team.

Midgets are comparatively inexpensive—you can buy a tired one for about $11,000, which is good enough to get you in the lineup. If you plan on winning, you’d better be prepared to invest six figures. Probably the majority of Chili Bowl participants rent a car from an established team, which is what our editor-in-chief, Larry Webster, did for a story in 2022.

Cameron Neveu

Webster, an experienced sports car racer, made it to the K feature, well short of the main event, but a very respectable showing for a driver’s first midget race. Before his first race, “I thought that slinging a midget around a dirt track, spitting mud, dicing with other drivers would be the most riotous thing a lifelong driving enthusiast could do behind the wheel,” he wrote. “In hindsight, I had no idea how intimidating this form of racing could be.”

Racing begins tonight, and continues daily through Saturday night, culminating in the 40-lap main event, which is sometimes quite late. There’s only one way to see it: On FloRacing, which is streaming the entire event. Prices vary depending on how much of the Chili Bowl you want to watch.

Read next Up next: This NASCAR Nova Is Born Again for the Street

Comments

    The Chili Bowl is quite possibly one of the best names out there for a race. Plus a bowl of chili is great on a cold day!

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