The 2014 Chili Bowl Jr. kicked off in Tulsa, Ok this past weekend starting on wednesday. With over 230 entries going through controlled practice only allowing for 2 runs in each class.
During the first day of qualifying some issues with the timing system forced the race to drop Q1 to be fair to all in attendance. This helped out Tekin team driver Brian Stanton who had a collision while on Tq pace in round one erasing his 14th for the round! Whew! That was the good news, the bad news was the last 2 remaining rounds would count, no excuses!
Day 2 of qualifying the track was tightening up a bit as the grip was coming up. Stanton was 1st run in his class and laid down a fast but safe run to take a 7th for the round getting him in the fast resort for the last round. Stanton gambled with a drag brake change last minute as he watched a few cars exit the race line upside down to grip rolling! His gamble paid off taking a solid 5th for the round!
Mains day was up with Stanton starting from the 5th position in the Midwest Modified class. Brian recaps his main:
“Going out for my hot lap session, the car was a little free in the turns but after a couple of laps my car was locked in and became a little tight off the turns pulling the front tires off the ground with ease from the Tekin RSX & Gen 2 8.5 motor. After making a quick adjustment to get into the turn better, then an adjustment to get off the turns better, I was ready to go. It was time to get rolling, literally with a rolling start. The first few laps went by like a freight train running around the track before a bobble ahead of me moved me into the 3rd position. Only 2 laps later, I got caught up in a back marker accident and spun into the sandy portion near the wall, losing over a lap. I was sure my race was done at this point. I wanted to get back all the positions that I could and knew that I needed to stay clean to make up these spots. By lap 13 I was back to 4th after dropping to 7th. Two laps later, I was up to the 3rd position. I could see the second place car in my peripheral vision, but couldn’t make up a lot of time while making my way through traffic. Then, with less than 30 seconds to go, I was able to make the pass into second place after a pile up in turn 2. As the race ended, only the top two turned in 45 lap runs and I made the climb from as low as 7th back to a second finish position. Following the race, I still had plenty of power and traction to pull the front wheels off the ground.” Brian Stanton
