How competitive was the Chili Bowl?

A snapshot of championship diversity

 

 

 

 

By now, most racing fans know that Christopher Bell a member of the powerful Keith Kunz Motorsports/Toyota Racing Development team successfully defended his title as the 2018 Chili Bowl Nationals champion. Bell took the victory after his teammate and fellow NASCAR star Kyle Larson suffered an engine failure midway through the 55-lap feature race.

KKM Toyota -powered Spike chassis entries won three of the four 2018 Chili Bowl preliminary night features and Bell’s win is KKM’s fourth consecutive Chili Bowl win since 2015. KKM was dominant on Saturday as in addition to claiming the feature win, all three steps of the podium went to KKM drivers – Rico Abreu was second and Spencer Bayston was third.

With such domination by one team, some may ask the question with 345 entries in 2018, how competitive and diverse is the Chili Bowl? Consider the starting field for the first of two C-Main 15 lap features which included Tanner Thorson the 2016 USAC (United States Auto Club) National Midget Champion and  2017 National Midget Driver of the Year, 2008 ARCA stock car champion Justin Allgaier who finished third in the 2017 NASCAR Xfinity series, and Steve Buckwalter, who has over 30 wins on the tough ARDC (American Racing Drivers Club) midget circuit and was their 2010 series champion.

That trio was joined by multi-time ASCS (American Sprint Car Series) Northwest division champion Roger Crockett, three-time POWRi midget series champion Zach Daum, World of Outlaws late model series champion and 2006 Chili Bowl champion Tim McCreadie, and multi-time USAC Southwest sprint car champion RJ Johnson.

As if that is not a tough enough field, it also included two-time USAC National Sprint Car champion Brady Bacon, Sprint Car Challenge Tour (SCCT) sprint car series star Colby Copeland, CJ Leary who won four USAC National sprint car features in 2017 USAC/CRA multi-time winner Jake Swanson, three-time King of West sprint car champion Kyle Hirst and USAC National Sprint car series star Thomas Meseraull who was the 2004 BCRA (Bay Cities Racing Association) Midget series champion.  

Of the twenty cars and drivers in the first C-Main race, only the top six advanced to the tail of the first B-main race – Thorson, Allgaier, local driver Ace McCarthy who races with the POWRi series, Daum, Bacon and Leary. Of those six drivers only one -Tanner Thorson-was able to advance to the night’s 55-lap feature where he finished fourth behind his three former teammates, as for 2018, Thorson drives for the Dooling-Hayward Motorsports/Richard Childress Racing team.  

 

 

Bradley Kilby- Virginia’s Rising Star

 

Bradley celebrates another 2017 victory

photo courtesy of Kilby Racing

 

Fourteen year-old Bradley Kilby from the historic town of Bealeton Virginia had a very successful 2017 racing season as he captured ten race victories at two tracks in fifteen outings. Bradley won the 2017 INEX Bandolero championship at Dominion Raceway and fell just one point shy of winning the 2017 INEX Bandolero championship at Langley Speedway. INEX is the sanctioning body for Legends racing worldwide is the third largest short track racing sanctioning body in the world and boasts current NASCAR stars Chase Elliott, Alex Bowman, and Austin Dillion as alumni.  

 

Bradley on a victory lap in his Bandolero

photo courtesy of Kilby Racing

 

Bradley who hones his skills off the track on iracing.com drove machines owned by his parents Wes and Lorri Kilby with sponsorship from MN Upholstery Services, Express Auto Service, Robert Dodson & Son, Sky Signs, Laymans Drafting Service and Tower Racing. Bandoleros are tube-chassis cars which stand only 34 inches tall, powered by a sealed 30-horsepower Briggs & Stratton Vanguard V-twin engine connected to a centrifugal clutch.  A 750-pound full-fendered Bandolero car rides on 6-inch wheels fitted with spec tires with adjustable coil over shock absorbers on the rear wheel which places a premium on driver ability.

 

Bradley celebrates his runner  up finish

at the 2017 Langley Speedway banquet

photo courtesy of Kilby Racing

 

Dominion Raceway in Thornburg Virginia where Kilby claimed five victories in six starts enroute to his 2017 track championship is a slightly banked 4/10-mile asphalt track, similar to the historic .397 mile Langley Speedway in Hampton Virginia where Bradley finished just one point behind the INEX Bandolero track champion Jacob Putman, although Kilby scored five City Cycle Corporation series wins during the season compared to Putman’s two wins.  

 

 

 

Bradley with Frank Kimmel

photo by the author

 
While at the 2017 edition of the Performance Racing Industry (PRI) trade show in Indianapolis in early December, Bradley networked with and learned valuable career lessons from racing legends that included 10-time ARCA racing series champion Frank Kimmel and long-time IndyCar crew chief and current Harding Racing team manager Larry Curry.   

For the 2018 racing season, Bradley Kilby is moving up in class to race the Dominion Raceway Late Model series with a Chevrolet-bodied car powered by a Chevrolet ‘603’ crate engine fed by a two barrel carburetor. The 17-race DRLM series kicks off on April 7 2018 and will continue through October 20. Check back on this site frequently during the 2018 racing season to keep up with Bradley’s success, and remember to “like” Kilby Racing on Facebook.    

 

Bradley practices his victory lane pose next to the car of

Austin Theriault the 2017 ARCA champion

photo by the author

 

Top Fuel Hydroplane drag boat

The Hedman Hedders booth at the Performance Racing Industry (PRI) trade show featured the Hedman-sponsored “Shockwave” Top Fuel Hydroplane drag boat driven by Tyler Speer who celebrated his 26th birthday just prior to Christmas.

Speer took an interesting career path; after a childhood racing motocross and go-karts, he graduated to late models then began racing an ARCA (Automobile Racing Club of America) stock car on the dirt one mile tracks as a 20 year old in 2010.  To date Tyler has run 11 dirt races with his best finishes in 2016 of seventh at both DuQuoin and Springfield which matched his career best from the 2012 season.

In previous years, the stock cars driven by the young man from Woodstock Georgia carried primary sponsorship from his father Jim’s ProBoat Inc. boat service shop, but this past year Speer drove a Chevrolet owned by Andy Hillenburg that carried sponsorship from the Lucas Oil Drag boat racing series.

In 2015, Tyler stepped into drag boat racing at the controls of the Amphibious Motorsports “Climax” Pro Modified boat. A “Pro Mod” powered by 500-cubic inch ‘hemi’ style engine on methanol in a hydro style hull with the single 11-inch diameter propeller driven through a v-drive. “Pro Mod” places a premium on driver ability as the goal is to race down the “liquid quarter mile” to the finish ahead of your competitor in 7 seconds without going under that barrier.

As a rookie in the 2015 Lucas Oil Drag Boat Racing (LODBRS) Pro Modified series, Speer finished seventh in the national points standings. This past season, Speer won the LODBRS  Pro Modified World Championship in a tight points race which was only determined at the series’ ninth and final race at Wild Horse Motorsports Park near Phoenix Arizona.   

Also during 2016, Tyler Speer made his first appearance in the #131 Hedman-sponsored “Shockwave” Top Fuel Hydro owned by Robert Montgomery. Shockwave is a “outrigger” style Ellison hull powered by a 500-cubic inch supercharged engine that burns a mix nitromethane and methanol to produce an estimated 10,000 horsepower and uses Hedman Hedders. 

Lucas Top Fuel boats use a W-drive transmission mounted ahead of the backwards mounted engine which splits the engine’s power into two contra-rotating propellers which spin at up to 20,000 revolutions per minute (RPM) to drive the “Shockwave” boat from a standing start to over 255 miles per hour at the end of the 1000 foot course in 3 ½ seconds.  

A view inside the driver capsule of the Hedman Hedders “Shockwave” which is designed to break away and float in case of a crash, with the driver breathing from the air tank mounted on the floor of the capsule.   

In 2017, Tyler Speer plans to defend his LODBRS ‘Pro Mod’ title and hopes to run a full season in the Hedman “Shockwave” Top Fuel hydro as well as compete in the two ARCA dirt races. Hedman Hedders has been proudly making exhaust tube headers in the United States since the company was founded by Bob Hedman in 1954. Check them out at  http://www.hedman.com/

All photos by the author