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 Speedcar
Super Series star and current NSW Speedcar Champion Mark
Brown flew out of Sydney on the weekend to embark on his
first campaign at the honoured Chili Bowl in Tulsa
Oklahoma. Driving the brand new #71b Stealth/Mopar
machine as purchased stateside by fellow Sydney hard
charger Brett ‘the Jet’ Morris; Brown will join
Queensland’s Toni Kruck as the only Australian
contenders at the event.
The five night indoor race event was created in 1987 by
founders Emmett Hahn and Lanny Edwards and was initially
sponsored by the Chili Bowl food company, thus its
well-known appellation; The O'Reilly Chili Bowl Midget
Nationals. These days, over 280 Midget drivers nominate
for the annual indoor show with hopes of joining the
impressive winners list which includes the likes of
four-time winner Sammy Swindell, Tony Stewart, Scott
Hatton, Cory Kruseman, Lealand McSpadden and last year’s
winner in the Australian Hawk engined machine; Tim
McCreadie.
Supporting Browndog’s first foray into the wild and
wingless US Midget scene will be none other than local
Sydney front runners Mark Cooper and Brett Morris, along
with Brown’s current Rondalee NSW11 Aggressor/Hawk car
owner Brad Dent; all of which have plenty of experience
dealing with the smaller scale ¼ mile race tracks we use
in Australia. They will be backed by loyal sponsors
Minipickers, American Race Tires, Stealth Chassis and
Weld Wheels.
Joining Brown and Kruck this year in an all-time record
number of Chili Bowl entries are past visitors to
Australian Midget racing such as Jerry Coons Jnr, Brad
Kuhn, Danny Stratton, ex-Australian Speedcar Champions
Tony Elliott and Cory Kruseman and reigning Aussie
Champion Davey Ray; plus superstars Tony Stewart, Kasey
Kahne, JJ Yeley, Sammy Swindell, Critter Malone, Terry
McCarl, Danny Lasoski, Wally Pankratz, Daryn Pittman,
Josh Wise and Jason Sides in the Australian Steve Smith
Buzzard/Hawk Team car to name but a few!
Toni Kruck will be the first Australian to hit the track
this year with pre-qualifying on Tuesday night (US time)
while Mark Brown heads into Thursday night qualifying
(US time). Toni must finish in the top 15 from Tuesday's
Pre-Qualifier to advance to the
qualifying night events held on the Wednesday, Thursday
and Friday. All going well, Ma rk
and Toni (if qualified) must then finish in the top four
from the
qualifying night features to automatically lock into the
Saturday night January 13th championship feature,
or move through
the preliminary features on Saturday according to their
qualifying night results.
To listen to the live audio of each night’s event, visit
www.racinboys.com
or visit
www.ChiliBowl.com for more information on the event
and the full listing of entrants for 2007.
Photos courtesy of Gavin Skene of
www.StillShots.com.au
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