This year several NASCAR drivers participated in the 39th annual Chili Bowl Nationals including previous winners Christopher Bell and Kyle Larson.
In the main event – a 40 lap finale for the trophy – Kyle Larson overcame some difficulty to get his 2025 started off in a winning manner by taking home his third Golden Driller trophy.
Speaking on his win, Larson said, “all three (Chili Bowl wins) are different,” Larson said. “The first one was just a big hurdle to get over mentally I feel like to get a win in here finally. Then the next year meant a lot because we didn’t have the best car that race but we played defense really well.”
He added, “tonight, the track was challenging to make a lap by yourself, so when you can win a 40-lap race on a track that challenging, it’s pretty cool.”
In the lead with 17 laps remaining in the race, Jacob Denney and Brenham Crouch made contact and wrecked right in front of Larson. With no place to go, Larson ran over Crouch’s front wheels, stalled, and got re-fired when he hit the ground without losing his lead!
Larson said, “he was just stopped sideways in front of me. I just kind of ramped over the left-front of his race car. I just kind of jumped him really. It stalled in mid-air. When it was getting ready to land, I was like, ‘Please, please, please re-fire.’ It re-fired, so I thought I would only get one break, not two.”
But with just four laps remaining in the race, Larson was coming out of turn four he caught the edge of the dirt track and climbed up the outside wall. When he landed back on the track, his nose was pointed toward the infield but he managed to get the car heading in the right direction in time to fight for the lead.
As luck would have it, a banner came off of the wall and landed on the track during his wall climb and brought out a caution flag.
Larson commented, “I made a mistake on the frontstretch and was kind of up on top of the wall and it shot me off of it. I thought I was going to flip similar to how I did last year. I didn’t know it at the time, but it had ripped the banner down. I thought they threw the caution for me.
He added, “before I got back around to the other side I was like, ‘Man, I don’t know how they’re going to score this.’ If they were going to have me as the cause of the caution, if I would get penalized or anything. But I saw the banner laying there and I was like, ‘OK, well that’s good. Maybe I’ll keep my spot.’”
In the end, Larson came out in front and crossed the finish line first for his third win in 17 tries.
Fellow NASCAR drivers Christopher Bell, Ricky Stenhouse Jr, Josh Bilicki, JJ Yeley, and Brent Crews; with Ty Gibbs and Kyle Busch making their Chili Bowl Nationals debuts.