Not even three cautions in the final 10 laps could deter Abreu, who fended off T. Thomas’ advances each time and ultimately crossed the twin checkers with a .655 of a second advantage following a two-lap dash to the finish.
Abreu said afterwards that the raciness of the track meant that not only was Wednesday night a fantastic show for the fans, but it made it difficult for the drivers to know where was best to run, as well.
“I wasn’t really sure what kind of decisions to make at the end,” Abreu admitted. “You get all kinds of cautions like we did and it makes things really tough. A couple years ago I had a race like that, and it kind of taught me something. You can’t really control what guys are going to do behind you, so I tried not to worry about it, kept doing what I was doing and just raced the race track.”
“You know it’s a good race track when the drivers don’t know if they need to run the top or the bottom. This is a place where the track surface changes throughout an A-Main, to where you don’t know which lane to be in at which time … and that’s what makes great race car drivers great, especially here. You just have to adjust and race your race.”
Tyler Thomas finished second to advance into his second-consecutive championship finale at the Chili Bowl with his No. 91T BT Machine Inc. entry.
“I don’t know what more we could have done with the car,” admitted Thomas. “I think it was more about the driver. Rico just made the right moves at the right time, caught me off guard with a couple sliders and I just made one little mistake on my end. That’s racing though.”
“I’m confident about the rest of the week and really looking forward to Saturday. This is pretty darn cool to lock in.”
Kevin Thomas Jr. completed the podium in third, steering the Heffner Racing No. 27 into the Saturday finale for the second-straight year after Larry Wight accomplished the same feat one year ago.
“To slide with Tyler for the lead at the beginning was pretty cool,” said the Alabama native. “It was just such a fun race. All of that battling back and forth was wild.”
“When I slid Tyler, I knew Rico was down there on the bottom … and he’s just going to get right back by you, but everyone was changing positions. That was just a blast. I’ve never locked it into the A-Main here before, so this is really cool.”
Despite applying heavy pressure over the final 10 laps, five-time Chili Bowl champion Sammy Swindell was unable to crack the top three and crossed the line fourth, just ahead of Chris Windom and Ryan Robinson.
Recent triple Tulsa Shootout winner Jason McDougal finished seventh after starting his night from 11th in the C-Main, transferring through the alphabet soup and advancing 13 positions in the A-Main alone.
J.J. Yeley, Gary Taylor and hard charger Jeb Sessums rounded out the top 10 finishers, with Sessums climbing from last (24th) on the grid to his 10th-place finishing position.
Action for the 32nd annual Lucas Oil Chili Bowl Nationals continues on Thursday with John Christner Trucking Qualifying Night, which will feature defending Chili Bowl champion Christopher Bell among the entries.
Full results can be viewed on the next page…
