By Ken Wagner
January 22, 2008

The 22nd annual Chili Bowl was the usual good and bad with an announced crowd of some 16,000 plus in the house most of the four days. That should have guaranteed more than the reported $10,000 to win prize. This race is one of, if not the most prestigious midget evens in the country and should pay much more. There was some awesome racing every night and Damion Gardner winning the big one on Saturday night should shut up the doubters about his driving. He added a prelim night win so all was good with in the Pace/Gardner camp. In fact the California boys took three of the four nights and I am sure that was as shocking to the USAC fans, as it was to me. Gardner drove his butt off for both his prelim win and the big 50 lapper and with Daryl Saucier's skills on his 410 coming up, this should be a banner year for the Demon.

The Chili Bowl Pics are up. Click here to see. Also for the stats for the race Click here.

The Demon passed some big time heroes on the track and held off some more on his way to a special place in midget lore history. He had to overcome one little incident that could have ended his night on Saturday when he biked the car up on two wheels, one front wheel and one back wheel, looking like a daredevil driver in the old fair excitement shows (Joey Chitwood anyone?) of days gone by. If you were on the infield, you could read the brand of seat he was using. The launch was high and went for several car lengths before it came down on a miraculous save, let alone Damion continuing on in the lead with Dave Darland lurking under him.

The track prep was unusually wasted as the monstrous task of preparing and redoing the surface wasn’t getting the results like old times, even though they worked it hard to maintain a racy surface. Perhaps the dirt is worn out, but the norm was a smooth flat slick surface that many could not make work, especially in the main events each night. It made the slick track runners the favorites.

The weather was not a factor, though it never is inside the huge Expo building, only the air quality that results from all that exhaust that does affect some people. From the outside, who could guess the wonders going on inside, as 5 nights of racing went off regardless of weather or anything else going on in the nice city of Tulsa. The racing was the usual as exciting battles happened every night. Some of the bullish big time sprint car drivers had their problems, but they usually hit something and the better drivers won out in the end.

It is hard to describe the annual event beyond saying that when 275 cars show up, many good drivers are going to get bashed! Even the best can’t avoid the many misguided midgets that are on a path that drivers often times can misjudge and miss the proper angle of passing. Each year, some of the best drivers don’t even make the main event, but that usually is a direct result of their qualifying night luck. Ideally, you want to draw a spot at the back of your heat so you can collect as many points as possible going to the front. That plan will rocket you to the front of that nights A-main. A top four finish there puts you automatically into the front of the A-Main on Saturday night. Any thing else is an e-ticket ride, or rides, to maybe get there. When things don’t go well in those early attempts, you end up in the famous K-main to B-main road rally that most don’t survive the unknown terrors of.

The Wednesday night racing was pretty fun as 10 heats, several last chance qualifiers, several points’ qualifiers, two semis’ and a main made for a lot of action. When Californian Josh Ford hooked up his Keith Ford, Bob Wirth-powered, Berry Pack, VMAR, BR Motorsports, JFM-chassis, No. 73 he had a great battle with Davey Ray before securing the lead on lap 9 and pulling away with his second Chili Bowl prelim win. He looked great as he won his heat, ran second in his A Qualifier before grabbing a big win. Behind him were Aaron Fiscus, Jerry Coons Jr. and Bryan Clauson also going to the Saturday A-main.

Thursday saw a lot of action as Brad Kuhn won from the pole in the Mopar-powered Hoosier, Simpson, Barnes Oil Systems, No. 71x, Spike chassis car. That should tell you about the racing again as the slick track never gave anyone a look at him. On Friday, still with a slick track, it looked for about 10 laps that Cory Kruseman would win and his followers wouldn’t be able to catch him as he moved farther ahead. For what seemed like a long time, the entire field was following Cory on the bottom and it looked like a follow the leader race and was very boring at that point. Dave Darland went up to the slick top and began to move and things changed. When a yellow appeared things began to unravel for Cory. He still led another 5 laps, but wasn’t pulling away when Jason Leffler got by him. Then the Demon went to the top and got moving around Cory and bam, Cory came up and they banged wheels with Cory spinning to the infield and Damion taking the lead from his car owner Jason Leffler and winning his first Tulsa Driller in Leffler's Pace Electronics, Team ASE, No. 71ge.

Saturday was the usual craziness with heat races starting right after noon! When it got to the evening heats, the two D-mains going off, the action got rougher and rougher as drivers took chances just to make the transfers. Some outstanding efforts on the tough track included Brady Bacon starting 21st and finishing 7th with great moves and he was the hard charger of the event. Nathan High also passed 14 cars coming from 25th to 10th in his first ever Chili Bowl Main. He was strong all week. Dave Darland probably passed more cars in the two features he was in than anybody. Many others had some great moments, but were relegated in the pits with “encounters” that ended their hopes of the championship.

I was enjoying myself so much during the week without ice and snow, I just visited and enjoyed the racing. Thanks to my pal Steve Lafond for putting up the pictures of the winners each night as I vegged out. It looks like my son Kevin is hooked on this event and I will have to work out Mrs Wags appearances with her no vacation routine in the future. I am sorry it took so long to get this out, but I was greeted with my grandson’s baseball tournament and other pressing issues, so have had little time to call my own this past week.

I will get back on schedule now and answer the question I heard most often at the Chili Bowl: are you still writing? The answer is I never was writing, only report my madcap mind views for those who care and will try to step up and get more out of there as the season begins and we do go racing 410’s again. With the Wagsdash on Sept 6th, it will require a few wheels to turn sooner, so if you’re in that vein, help me get started.