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The Chili Bowl Nationals is an indoor midget car race that is held annually in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Taking place in January at the Tulsa Expo Center, it is considered to be the "Super Bowl of midget racing". Top drivers from different racing formats take part in it. The Chili Bowl Nationals track is a 1/5-mile (0.32 km) dirt oval, located indoors at the Tulsa Expo Center.
The dirt track is made from clay that was previously used at the adjacent fairgrounds which helps with traction and consistency for racing. Due to the track being indoors, the weather conditions don’t have much of an effect, therefore no delays in the race schedule. The Tulsa Expo Center has the capacity to accommodate 15,000 fans.
The event goes on for six days, starting with five days of qualifiers which lead up to the final Saturday night A-Main race. Each qualifying night has heat races, dash-style events, and a 25-lap feature. Drivers who do not perform well in their heats have to go through elimination rounds to get a spot in the A-Main. The final race has 24 to 26 cars.
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The race used to be 55 laps long and the story behind that is that the A-Main feature was originally a 50-lap race, but in honor of driver Donnie Ray Crawford III who tragically passed away right before the event in 2012, five more laps were added to the race format.
This year's championship A-Feature will go back to a 40-lap race. The Non-Wing Outlaw feature will run 55 laps to continue to honor Crawford’s life and legacy.
Where does the Chili Bowl Nationals get its name?
The Chili Bowl Nationals owes its name to a local Tulsa business, "The Chili Bowl Company," which sponsored the inaugural race in 1987. Owned by the Berryhill family, the company first began as a restaurant on 11th Street in Tulsa and later expanded its operations to sell chili in grocery stores.
Lanny Edwards and Emmett Hahn, the event's founders, were looking for a sponsor while preparing for the first race. This is when Bob Berryhill, the company's owner, came in with the sponsorship support. This primarily is what gave the race its name.
The inaugural Chili Bowl Nationals had 52 cars over two days. Today, the event has grown exponentially, with over 350 cars participating in week-long qualifiers leading to the finals. Though the Berryhills later sold their company, the name "Chili Bowl" has stuck to this day.
As far as the race win history is concerned, Sammy Swindell holds the record for the most wins here, which is five. Kenny Swindell coming in second, has four wins and Christopher Bell is at third with three. Both Kyle Larson and Tony Stewart have won the race twice.
The Chili Bowl Nationals event also has a fan tradition of counting the flips in an event, this is called the ‘flip count.’ The highest ever recorded flip count is the 2020 season with a total of 77 flips.
