“At the beginning of the race I wasn’t too worried about him driving away,” explained Bell. “I was just trying to take my time and run my own race. Whenever we were rolling around there under yellow, I’m looking at the track, and I’m like, ‘I think the top will be there in (turns) three and four. As soon as I tried it, it was there right away.
“At that time, I was just trying to pace myself and not make a mistake or run too hard. And then I got to lapped traffic, and I took it way too easy and Kyle was able to sneak by me. He was getting through lapped traffic great. It seemed like every time he caught someone he was able to put ’em a lap down, and then I’d get trapped behind ’em.”
From there, a longer green flag run opened up slower traffic for the leaders to navigate, and that’s where Larson came back to life. He dropped a huge slider on Bell in turns three and four on lap 26 to retake the top spot, holding steady out front despite not being able to pull away from Bell.
Slowly but surely, though, Larson’s engine began to unravel.
Finally, coming to 13 laps to go, a solo puff of smoke coming down the frontstretch was the signal that all hope of a victory was lost as Larson pulled to the infield, his chance at the Golden Driller gone.
“It was bad for about two or three laps before it finally let go,” said Larson. “It’s so rare for motors to fail here. Just another bit of bad luck for us at the Chili Bowl. That’s how racing is sometimes.”
From there, Bell was left unchallenged en route to victory lane, while Abreu came home as the runner-up in his best Chili Bowl effort since his last win at Tulsa in 2015.
“I don’t think there was much difference in the cars … I think that was mostly driver,” said Abreu of Bell. “I’ll gladly take second at the Chili Bowl, though. I know there’s a lot of difference between first and second, but this was a really good night for us and I’m happy.”
Spencer Bayston completed the podium in third to give Kunz a sweep of the top three spots.
Tanner Thorson worked his way from 17th to finish fourth, while Ryan Bernal completed the top five and garnered hard charger honors after starting 23rd and picking up 18 positions through the 55-lap distance.
To see full results, turn to the next page.
