Christopher Bell celebrates with his team after winning Saturday night’s Chili Bowl Midget Nationals at Tulsa Expo Raceway. Bell is the first native Oklahoman to score a home state win in the event in 22 years. Photo by John Lee
In 1994, Andy Hillenburg became the first Oklahoman to win the Chili Bowl Midget Nationals.
Twenty-two years later, the Golden Driller trophy has made its way home as Norman, Oklahoma’s Christopher Bell made his mark in the history books as the 2017 Chili Bowl champion with a win at Oklahoma’s Tulsa Expo Raceway.
Earning the victory for Keith Kunz Motorsports, Bell’s win puts Kunz with six overall Chili Bowl titles as a car owner since 1994, when Hillenburg wheeled the Keith and Rusty Kunz owned entry to victory lane.
“I’m speechless right now,” said Bell. “I’ve been coming to this building for so long trying to win one of these things, and I thought I was really close to won at the Shootout a couple weeks ago, but we had a lot of bad luck but I’ll trade all that bad luck in for this Driller right here. This means the world to me.
“Most of my bad luck in this race has been self-inflicted. You know, I’ve been in this position before. I think this is the third time I’ve started on the front row and I would run into trouble because I was pushing too hard. Every time I’ve come here, it’s been attack, attach, attack and in this 55 lap race, you don’t need to do that so I just ran as hard as I needed too.”
In his fourth feature appearance, the Kunz/Toyota combination started the championship A-Main outside the front row with Bell chasing leader Justin Grant for the first 25 laps.
With the high side of the racing surface coming into play, Bell began reeling in grant, and would finally take the lead with an outside pass off of the second turn. Daryn Pittman would soon overtake Grant for second, and began working to close on the leader when a caution set up a single file restart.
Racing through a few more cautions, Pittman was able to build momentum, and looked to have a run to challenge Bell for the lead. But when Pittman’s mount caught the cushion and nearly got into the fence, Bell was able to scamper away to the victory.
Pittman finished in second, with Grant in third, Tanner Thorson in fourth and Jake Swanson in fifth.
Tyler Courtney, Zach Daum, Jerry Coons, Jr., Ronnie Gardner and Damion Gardner rounded out the top ten.
The dates for the 32nd Chili Bowl Nationals will be January 9-13, 2018. For more information, visit ChiliBowl.com.
Chili Bowl Nationals
Tulsa Expo Raceway – Tulsa, OK
A-Feature Results – Jan. 14, 2017
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2. 21-Daryn Pittman
3. 39BC-Justin Grant
4. 67-Tanner Thorson
5. 68W-Jake Swanson
6. 7BC-Tyler Courtney
7. 5D-Zach Daum
8. 5-Jerry Coons, Jr.
9. 68-Ronnie Gardner
10. 71G-Damion Gardner
11. 97-Rico Abreu
12. 31-Travis Berryhill
13. 99W-Larry Wight
14. 25C-C.J. Leary
15. 17W-Shane Golobic
16. 17BC-Ricky Stenhouse, Jr.
17. 91T-Tyler Thomas
18. 35F-Michael Faccinto
19. 51X-Colby Copeland
20. 8J-Jonathan Beason
21. 47-Danny Stratton
22. 5CB-Chase Briscoe
23. 1R-Thomas Meseraull
24. 5X-Justin Peck
25. 05T-Gary Taylor
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