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(24 Hours of) 2023 Chili Bowl Nationals – Frontstretch

Chili Bowl

The Headline(s): Logan Seavey became the first polesitter to win the Chili Bowl Nationals since Kevin Swindell accomplished the feat in the same No. 39 car 11 years ago.

How it Happened

2023 Chili Bowl Nationals
Where: Tulsa Expo Raceway – Tulsa, Okla. (streamed on Flo Racing)
Winner’s Purse: $10,000

Two weeks removed from scoring a Driller trophy in the Tulsa Shootout, the Swindell Speedlabs No. 39 returned to midget victory lane courtesy of Logan Seavey, who prevailed on a green-white-checkered finish after a pitched battle with defending champion Tanner Thorson.

Thorson, who ran second to Seavey for pretty much the entire second half of the feature, was within a car length of the eventual race winner for the final 10 laps but raced very clean, making minimal contact throughout the exchange. Cannon McIntosh finished third and was the only driver other than Seavey to lead laps during the A-main.

The 55-lap feature came after a marathon race event that saw more than 15 hours elapse between the morning’s announced start for hot laps and the checkered flag flying. History was made on multiple fronts prior to the start of the A-main, with Brent Crews becoming the youngest A-main starter in the event’s history and Kaylee Bryson and Jade Avedesian marking the first time the A-main featured two female starters.

Fanning the Flames

It took the Chili Bowl Nationals six hours to get from their C-main to the end of their A-main, thanks to 90 minutes of pre-race, 30 minutes of track work after said pre-race, 20 minutes of track work between the C and B events, nearly 20 minutes between the two B-mains, and then over an hour of track work and intros before the A-main. The NFL literally played an entire playoff game before the Chili Bowl got its prelims done. They could rename this event The Neverending Story without it being false advertising.

But damn, don’t call that out on Twitter. The Chili Bowl is perfect. It’s the greatest thing ever. I wrote in my Wednesday column that the supporters of this event border on the occult. Fast forward to Saturday (wait, Sunday morning) and I’m going to edit that to be blunter….

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