More Good Times at the Chili Bowl
As NASCAR Continues to Sink
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As
I write this, the finals of the Chili Bowl Nationals midget race are still more
than a day away, but the priority I’ve given to keeping up with the results has
prompted another look at why this event is on such an upward trajectory when
NASCAR continues to be headed in the other direction.
It
shouldn’t be that way. Midget racing enjoyed its peak of popularity nearly
three-quarters of a CENTURY ago (in
my area it’s now all but officially dead), and Tulsa, Oklahoma, isn’t exactly
the population or media center of the U.S. And yet the entry list for this
six-day extravaganza is more than 350, and there are enough NASCAR racers
entered to make up a pretty good field for stock car racing.
Here’s Kyle Larson after his preliminary win
What
is it about this event that has entrants including the following: Kyle Larson, Justin Allgaier, J.J. Yeley,
Ricky Stenhouse, Landon Cassill, Alex Bowman, Kasey Kahne, Christopher Bell,
Tanner Thorson, Tanner Berryhill, Rico Abreu, everybody who is anybody in USAC,
a good number of World of Outlaws stars, racers from Australia, New Zealand,
England and Canada, plus Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s niece (and Dale Sr.’s
granddaughter) Karsyn Elledge (and her father and respected crew chief Jimmy)?
Oh,
and visitors in the pits include Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart, among others.
Jeff Gordon racing a midget about 20 years ago
I
haven’t checked to see if the New York Times is covering the Chili Bowl, but
they no longer pay much attention to NASCAR, either. Among fans of all forms of
racing, my guess is that this event will come pretty close to equaling the
Daytona 500 in attention and will well exceed most other NASCAR Cup races.
Maybe it’s just that the constant side-by-side
racing of a short event is something NASCAR can’t offer
So
what’s being done right here, and why isn’t NASCAR paying attention?
First,
the obvious: this is a special race. Nobody else in midget racing draws more
than one-tenth as many cars; the Belleville Nationals, arguably the second most
prestigious midget event, was killed off last year due to declining car counts
and interest. In the East, the ARDC
sanctioning body, once a primary path to the Indy 500, kicked the bucket after
2017, and an effort by USAC to pick up the pieces apparently has failed as well
– car counts for last year’s scheduled events seldom were more than 12-15.
Like
the Snowball Derby in Florida, this is a winter event (it’s indoors), which
enables competitors to come from everywhere without interfering with regular
racing schedules.
Here’s what the biggest indoor race in the U.S.
looks like
All
of that helps, but add these ingredients:
Inexpensive
cars, allowing for one-race-only alliances AND enabling low-buck hometown
heroes to try their luck.
Anybody can try to make the field – your name doesn’t
guarantee anything, nor does your money.
I’ve
said it before, and I’ll say it again:
As long as NASCAR runs the Cup Series as basically a closed club with
rules that make the car more important than the driver, this sport has NO CHANCE of recovering its former
popularity. Given the near death of the car culture, it may not happen,
regardless, but what chance there is will be squandered by the current
cars/rules and the charter system.
So
take a few minutes to read the Chili Bowl results stories this week and think
of what could be. The Karsyn Elledge story alone makes a compelling
attention-getter. The 18-year-old daughter of Kelly Earnhardt Miller won her
first go-kart feature only last year, so the Chili Bowl was a huge jump, and
the heat win at this competitive level might just open a few doors.
Karsyn Elledge – Can we dream about the next
Earnhardt in NASCAR?
But
there are more things going on in Tulsa. This is a race dominated by
mega-teams, of which Keith Kunz Motorsports (with familiar NASCAR name Mike
Curb also involved) tops the list. The Kunz team, which also has Toyota
backing, ended up including either 10 or 11 cars. That means anybody with a
single-car operation is an underdog, worthy of fan support from those of us who
naturally cheer in that direction.
You
might also have chosen favorites based on where they were from – how about the
guy from Oxford, England – or what kind of racing they do regularly. You might
cheer for one of the several female racers running (including Elledge). The
areas of potential interest are many.
Look
at the results and see just how hard it is to even start the feature. Then see
if all those ingredients don’t fire up your excitement genes at least a little.
It might even remind you of the way things used to be in NASCAR.
Yes, it’s a much smaller grandstand, but it’s
packed, and they’re standing and cheering most of the night. That’s what we
need to bring back to NASCAR.
No “Loose
Lug Nuts” this week…