Catching traffic inside the final laps, Grant remained glued to the bottom while Pittman tried to work close enough to get a run on the top side. But though Pittman threw everything he had at the back of the No. 39BC, it wasn’t enough to sneak by and steal the win.
Pittman’s runner-up effort in the No. 21 Zarounian entry ensures that he will make his seventh-career finale appearance and fourth in the last four years.
“That bottom is too hard to run … and I prefer to run up on the top, anyways,” Pittman said. “They just did too much work on the track and it took too long for the top to come in well enough … but I said let’s go to the top and it worked. I’ve got a really good car and it’s a lot of fun to get behind the wheel of every time we hit the track.”
“I wanted to win, but we’re locked in and that’s always the goal on your prelim night. My car gets better and better the longer the race goes, so I’m excited for 55 laps on Saturday.”
Gardner held off Stenhouse in the final laps to finish third and join his Six-Eight Motorsports teammate Jake Swanson as a guaranteed starter in Saturday night’s A-Feature.
“Man, I can’t believe this,” said Gardner, who will make his finale debut Saturday night. “The car was so good all night. It was just up to me not to make any mistakes. We went a little conservative and sure enough, the bottom was good early. Pittman went by me and I thought, ‘I’m not just going to ride and let them drive by me.’ So I got up behind him and started running him down there before we got in heavy lapped traffic. Then I was just trying to make my marks. I knew we had a good (enough) car to get into the show.”
“This is the coolest thing I’ve ever done in my racing career. I get to sleep in, drink some beer tonight and party with the homies.”
Stenhouse and Faccinto completed the top five finishers.
Jac Haudenschild, netted the night’s Jason Leffler ‘Elbows Up’ Hard Charger Award by climbing from a B-Feature to finish 12th, advancing 10 positions during the A-Feature.
Thorson, McCarthy, Pittman and Grant topped the four 10-lap qualifying races, with Chris Cochran and Tim McCreadie leading the transfer cars out of the two 15-lap B-Features.
Joey Moughan and Chad Boat were victorious in the pair of 12-lap C-Features, while Blake Nimee and Nick Bailey won their respective 10-lap D-Features.
Damion Gardner, Dave Darland, Anton Hernandez, Faccinto, Robert Bell, Stenhouse , Pittman, Cory Kruseman, Danny Jennings, Thorson and Yeley all won heat races to kick off the night.
Of note, Grant won the Pizza Express Pole Shuffle following Friday’s main racing program, earning him the pole position for Saturday’s championship feature for the first time in his career.
A total of 91 cars drew in on Friday, setting a new Chili Bowl event record of 365 cars that took a competitive lap over the course of the week, out of a pool of 375 entries.
The 31st annual Lucas Oil Chili Bowl Nationals concludes Saturday, with a complete run of ‘alphabet soup’ running up to the 55-lap, $10,000-to-win championship A-Feature.
Live television coverage will begin with the twin C-Features at 8:30 p.m. ET on MAVTV.
Full results from Friday can be viewed on the next page…
