The annual Chili Bowl Nationals is not a cooking competition or a new post season football game but a racing event – one that features drivers from all across motorsports.
The week long event culminates in a 55 lap race where the annual champion is crowned. For many the event marks the unofficial start of the racing season – for NASCAR the season begins with Speedweeks in Daytona.
Chili Bowl competitors drive Midgets which they whip around a quarter mile dirt track that has been constructed for the event.
This year 360 drivers spanning 33 states and five countries – Australia, Canada, New Zealand, United Kingdom and the United States – will be competing at the River Sprint Expo Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Throughout the course of the week – Monday thru Friday – drivers compete in preliminary rounds until just 24 drivers remain for the 55 lap main event on Saturday.
Among those drivers entered into the competition is two time defending champion Christopher Bell, five time Chili Bowl champion Sammy Swindell, Kyle Larson, Alex Bowman, Ricky Stenhouse Jr, Kasey Kahne, Landon Cassill, Tanner Berryhill, Justin Allgaier, Chase Briscoe, J.J. Yeley, and competing in her first Chili Bowl Dale Earnhardt Jr’s niece Karsyn Elledge.