Kyle Larson passed Christopher Bell with 17 laps left and went on to win his first Chili Bowl Nationals crown Saturday night.
Bell, vying for a record-tying fourth consecutive win in the country’s premier midget race, finished second in the 24-car field at the River Spirit Expo Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Cannon McIntosh, 17 years old, finished third. NASCAR Xfinity driver Justin Allgaier placed 21st.
A year ago, Larson lost this race on the last lap to Bell. Larson had a large enough lead late in Saturday night’s race that Bell wasn’t close enough to make a move.
“Its a pretty different range of emotions 365 days later,” Larson said on the MavTV broadcast. “I feel like I’m going to pass out.
“I’m sorry NASCAR, I’m sorry Daytona, but this is the biggest (expletive) race I’ve ever won. I hope to win Daytona in a few weeks but this is bad ass.”
Here’s how other NASCAR competitors did in the various races Saturday that led to the A main that Larson won:
You can’t even fully dream of moments like this. I thought I might know what it’d feel like to finally win this thing but after what I experienced tonight I had no clue! I’m so blessed to be with great people. Loved… https://t.co/G6kONqvk9e
Enjoyed the heck out of my first Chili Bowl experience, an amazing event I finally got to see in person. Happy for @KyleLarsonRacin, it’s been a long time coming!! https://t.co/AfXEimUW0f
Kyle Larson‘s quest for his first Chili Bowl Nationals championship resumes tonight.
Larson, Alex Bowman and NBC Sports broadcaster Dillon Welch are among those scheduled to compete Tuesday, day two of the six-day event that concludes Saturday night at the River Spirit Expo Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
“There’s a handful of events throughout the year that get me excited, but the Chili Bowl is right up there at the top,” Larson said at a press conference Monday. “It’s hard to believe that this is my 13th year competing in this event. It’s pretty incredible. I look forward to it more and more each year.”
Larson finished second to Christopher Bell in last year’s Chili Bowl Nationals after being passed by Bell on the final lap.
“It took a few days, for sure, it took longer than any other race to get over that I’ve had in my career,” Larson said at Monday’s press conference of last year’s defeat. “I think when you go through defeats like that, it just makes you want it that much more and work harder to get better and probably, hopefully, someday when I do win, it’s going to make it feel that much more special. I would have obviously liked to (have won) but made a mistake and allowed Chris to get by and those are things you learn from. Hopefully, I don’t ever make that mistake again.”
On Monday night, 17-year-old Cannon McIntosh won his heat, qualifier and the feature to advance to Saturday’s main event. McIntosh drives for Keith Kunz Motorsports, which has won the last five Chili Bowl Nationals (Rico Abreu won in 2015-16 and Bell won from 2017-19).
Tyler Courtney finished second to also advance to Saturday night’s 55-lap A main.
Had a super fast car all night and in the feature completely missed the setup. Live and learn. Ended up 9th, we will have some work to do come Saturday.
This week brings the 34th Chili Bowl Midget Nationals in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which sees multiple NASCAR drivers among the roughly 359 entires for the event that runs from Jan. 13 -18.
The Chili Bowl has announced which night each driver is scheduled to participate in qualifying races.
Over the course of five nights, the top-two finishers from each A feature will lock themselves into Saturday’s 55-lap final race.
Each night of qualifying races begins at 6 p.m. ET.
IndyCar and former Xfinity Series driver James Davison
Here is the event format for the Chili Bowl:
– Advancement from heat races to features is based upon passing points earned in heat race and qualifying races. Passing points are based upon car starting position when the yellow light goes out prior to the initial start of the heat or qualifying race.
– The 40 drivers earning the most passing points advance to four “A” qualifying races; drivers in passing points positions 41-68 will go to two C Main races. The two C Main races will have 16 cars, 12 laps in length.
– The top four cars in each C Main race will advance to the back of the B Main races, going 15 laps. (Top four from first C Main to back of first B Main, top four from second C Main to back of second B main)
– The lineup of each “A” Qualifying race will include an inversion of six cars. The top 24 cars in passing points will make the inversion. (The top point driver will start on row three of the first qualifying race, the No. 2 driver on row 3 of the second qualifying race, etc.)
– The four qualifying races will have 10 cars each with the top 16 in combined passing points from the heats and qualifying races advancing to the A Main.
– The balance of the cars (24) from the “A” qualifying races will advance to two 16 car B Mains. The top four in each B Main will advance to the A Main, going 30 laps.
– There will be 24 drivers in each preliminary night A feature
– The top two drivers in the preliminary A qualify for Saturday’s A Main.
Chad Knaus, entering his second season as crew chief on William Byron‘s No. 24 Chevrolet, addressed the new Camaro model Monday on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio’s “The Morning Drive.”
“The unknown is obviously the car. That’s just going to take a little bit of time,” said Knaus, the last crew chief for a Chevrolet team to compete in the Cup Series’ Championship 4, when he and Jimmie Johnson won their seventh title in 2016.
In the Camaro’s first two years, Chevy teams have won 11 races, including four in 2018, while Ford won 29 races and Toyota won 32 races.
Knaus predicted the rollout of the new model will be “significantly different” to the Camaro’s debut in 2018.
“We’re more educated, we’re better prepared,” Knaus said. “What happened when we we brought out the new car is at the exact same time NASCAR changed the way they were inspecting the cars and employing the Hawkeye laser scanner, right? The older car, when it was designed, wasn’t really built for that. We had a little bit more leeway, we could have manipulated it let’s say just a little bit better to get some performance out of it. Well, with the restrictions that NASCAR’s put on us with the surface conformance all the way around the car, we didn’t have that ability.
“So that car was, it came out behind, does that make sense? With those rules, we weren’t able get on top of it. I do feel this car is coming out of the gate stronger. You never know that until you hit the race track, obviously. But I do feel it’s better and we’re going to be able to go out there and race a little bit better, which is great for Axalta and all our sponsors, they’re expecting that.”
The Camaro ZL1 1LE model will see its first track action Feb. 8 when teams practice at Daytona International Speedway for the Feb. 9 Busch Clash and Feb. 9 Daytona 500 qualifying.
Giovanni Scelzi grew up the son of a four-time National Hot Rod Association champion, and has been making a significant name of his own racing dirt midgets and sprints, particularly in the World of Outlaws series.
But there’s another race series that the 18-year-old Scelzi – “Gio” for short – has his sights set upon: NASCAR.
If all goes well, Scelzi hopes to begin climbing the NASCAR ladder – perhaps as early as this year.
Once the Chili Bowl concludes Saturday night, Scelzi, son of four-time NHRA champion Gary Scelzi, and younger brother of fellow sprint/midget car racer Dominic Scelzi, will then travel with Larson to Australia, where they’ll compete in several races, most notably the biggest event of the Australian sprint car season, The Classic, on Jan. 23-24.
Gio Scelzi after one of his nine wins last season. (Jason Tucker Photos)
Needless to say, all the time together with Larson will give the youngest Scelzi a chance to further pick his fellow Californian’s mind about how to reach and race in NASCAR.
“I love sprint car racing, that’s always where my heart will be,” Scelzi told NBC Sports last week. “It’s obviously what I grew up doing, dirt racing.
“I’ll still race sprint cars as much as I can, but in the next 5-10 years, I hope to get into Trucks and Xfinity to get towards NASCAR (Cup).”
Scelzi and his father have been working on getting Gio some seat time this year in the ARCA Menards Series West (formerly K&N Pro Series West).
“Hopefully this year or next year I’ll transition over to ARCA, which is a good stepping stone, do something along those lines and get my feet wet on pavement,” Gio Scelzi said. “I’ve done some testing the last year, just trying to see if that’s the direction I want to go.
“Nothing’s been announced yet, but I think something will be announced here pretty soon to hopefully go down that path.”
Even though their father was one of the most prolific drivers in NHRA history, Gio and his brother Dominic went in a different direction when they first started racing themselves.
Instead of the straight and narrow, they chose round and dirty, you might say.
“The hardest part of drag racing, there really is no way for a kid that can race anything before you’re 16,” Scelzi said. “That’s kind of the age where you can earn a license and are allowed to race under power and really learn how to race.
“But in dirt racing, there’s micro-sprints, outlaw karts, you name it, there’s all kind of kids classes you could do to learn how to race. My dad went to dirt races a lot in California and really enjoyed it, was good friends with (NASCAR Hall of Famer) Tony Stewart and (sprint car racer) Danny Lasoski, so he always had a friend base in dirt racing and that was a way to get me and my brother in a race car when we were really young.”
Dominic began racing go-karts at five years old and Gio began racing micro-sprints at 6 at their home track, Plaza Park Raceway in Visalia, Calif., about 30 miles from Fresno.
“I think sprint car racing is so unique from other forms of racing,” Gio Scelzi said. “With a 410 sprint car, around the United States, you have the World of Outlaws, the All-Stars (All Star Circuit of Champions), IRA (Sprint Series), Knoxville (Nationals), I mean there’s probably 20 or 30 race tracks racing on a given weekend, with the same rules package, the same kind of cars and there are very good race car drivers in their own region.
“With a sprint car, what I’ve done the last two years, I’ve been based in Indianapolis and race wherever we want. If we want to race in an All-Star race in Ohio, we can go there. If we want to race an Outlaw race in North Dakota, we can go there.
“There are so many different options with that same rules package that is such a simple, powerful, exciting race car, I don’t think there’s no other kind of professional racing where you can make a living at it that has that kind of atmosphere.
“If you’ve got the money and the motors to race, you can race every weekend. Just the World of Outlaws schedule is 95 races. Or you can race the All-Stars, which is 50 races, and then maybe 20 races in Outlaws when you want to. There’s so much freedom with a team where you want to go and where you want to race, I think that’s what makes it unique.”
Gio Scelzi in one of his midget races last season. (Jason Tucker Photos.)
The youngest Scelzi has steadily been making a name for himself in the sprint car dirt racing world. At the age of 16 in 2018, he became the youngest winner in World of Outlaws history. He also won his first USAC Midget race in just his sixth career start in the series.
And at 17 last season, he was the youngest winner in the Knoxville Raceway’s history when he won an All Star Circuit of Champions race there, one of the most notable outings in a season that saw Scelzi make 71 starts across several dirt racing series, earning nine wins, 23 top-five and 40 top-10 finishes.
This week is the second Chili Bowl for Scelzi. He did well in his first start in 2018, finishing sixth in his preliminary race, was second in the B Main and then was running in the top 10 in the week’s main event – until the motor in his midget car blew halfway through the race and he finished last in the 24-car field.
Scelzi is racing at the Chili Bowl — his first race of the week is this evening, which kicks off the Nationals’ six-night run at the Tulsa Expo Center — as part of the Toyota Development program with Chad Boat (son of former IndyCar driver Billy Boat). His teammates include Christopher Bell and NBC Sports reporter Dillon Welch.
“I’m excited for it,” Gio Scelzi told NBC Sports. “The Chili Bowl as an event is huge and keeps growing and growing and attracting more attention through NASCAR and all kinds of racing fans.
“There’s a lot of good race cars, it seems like every year more and more guys and good race car drivers all-around get a ride and want to participate.”
Here’s a video of Scelzi getting ready and then taking to the track for his first practice session Monday (video courtesy Toyota Racing Development):
