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Willie Kahne, Corey Day, and an old Mopar... The story of an UNUSUAL Chili Bowl winning combination | Daily 1-11-2024

Corey Day, Willie Kahne, and the story of how an 18 year old driver with a 19 year old engine won a Chili Bowl prelim night. That plus Wild West Shootout results, Lucas gets their 11th full timer, and another NASCAR Cup driver makes a late Chili Bowl entry. Let's go!

It's Thursday, January 11th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.

Real quick before we get started, if you like what I do here, hit that subscribe button on YouTube or where you get podcasts. Also, hit the thumbs up on these episodes. Both are free and easy ways to support DIRTRACKR, and that will help ensure you don't miss any future content. We still hover around that 60% mark of video viewers who don't subscribe. So hit that button. You know you want to. It's free and always will be. And yes, before the trolls comment about it, I'm not above asking people to subscribe. Content is my business, and I'd like that content to reach as many people as possible. That's good for my business. Alright, let's dive in...

In recent years, Wednesday night at the Chili Bowl had been Rico Abreu night. He'd won every prelim feature back to 2018, and eight of the last nine Wednesdays going to 2015. But with Rico in Australia this year, Wednesday was suddenly wide open for someone else to rise up. And that someone else turned out to be one of the brightest young stars the sport has seen in a while, in Corey Day. Coming into the feature, Jake Swanson and the Alex Bowman Racing 55A were the high point earners, and Swanson led the first lap of the feature from the pole. But from there, it was all Corey Day. It was a bit of a messy night overall, with a lot of incidents and cautions to deal with, but Day never wavered out front, rolling the top to his first career prelim night win and locking himself into the Saturday main event. Swanson ended up battling all race long with Michael Faccinto for the second lock-in spot, before eventually getting away late and also putting himself into the show. I just recently had Alex Bowman on an episode of DIRTRACKR Conversations, and we talked a bunch about Chili Bowl, including all the effort that he puts in to those cars, and the struggles they had a year ago. It was big for them to get locked in. Joining those two on the podium was Briggs Danner, who went fifth to third and continues to be a driver who doesn't get enough credit nationally for his talent and ability.

I want to talk more about Day here though, because there are a few things to take notice of. Coming out of the sprint car talent rich area of California, and backed by multi-time World of Outlaws champion Jason Meyers, we know that Day is setup for an incredible future. He's getting ready to compete full time this season with High Limit after taking down the 2023 NARC championship out west, and his name will continue to be one you hear a lot. But beyond 410 sprint car racing, make no mistake here, Day is getting noticed by people outside of dirt racing, and at higher levels of motorsports. Some serious players are keeping a very watchful eye over his development. Day appears to be a generational talent, and that's going to draw interest. At a much more granular level, and focusing specifically on last night, it's been interesting to watch this midget deal play out over the last few months. The car Day drove to the win last night is owned by Willie Kahne, and the partnership between these two has been going for a while now. Back in September we talked on a daily show about Day and Kahne running a 360 sprint car show out west with an interesting chassis design. And then the two were back together for the late USAC midget west coast swing. They started slow, with mediocre nights at Placerville and Merced, before coming alive and charging from 12th to second at Turkey Night. They clearly figured something out towards the end of that west coast swing, and it carried into this week at the Chili Bowl. Willie has an incredibly decorated past in open wheel racing, and is the mind behind Factory Kahne shocks. His knowledge plus Day's ability is a serious combination. Interesting crew guys on that car as well, with Tarlton Racing crew chief Drew Warner and sprint car driver Cole Macedo helping out Willie. What's even more notable about last night, was the steam in the Kahne midget. Of the 375 entries on the Chili Bowl website, 268 are powered by either TRD, Stanton, or Esslinger. And of the six cars to lock in so far, five are either Stanton or TRD powered. But not the Kahne 41. According to Brian Walker, a Mopar built 19 years ago by Bob Wirth was bolted into that car. That means the engine under the hood is older than the driver in the seat. It's refreshing that at an event where it's all about new, and light, and carbon fiber, and titanium, and big money, that a 19 year old Mopar was in victory lane on Wednesday night.

Looking elsewhere last night, Michael Stewart and Tyler Courtney were the big movers. Sunshine rallied to eighth in the main event after starting 16th, but also hitting the turn one hay bails. And Michael Stewart was a B-Main transfer who was hard charger on the night with a 22nd to 11th run. Looking ahead to tonight, Kyle Larson will officially be back in the building driving for Keith Kunz. He'll go up against Tanner Thorson, Spencer Bayston, Ricky Thornton Jr., Brady Bacon, CJ Leary, and plenty of others in search of one of those two locked in spots. He did tweet this morning that he left his gear bag in New Mexico last night, so we'll see if he has to steal some safety equipment from someone to be ready to roll. One other note. Kyle Larson isn't the only NASCAR Cup driver who made a late call to Keith Kunz to participate at the Chili Bowl. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. will join the fray on Friday night as well. Stenhouse returns to the Chili Bowl after not racing in 2023, and is an eight time main event starter. Same schedule today inside the expo, hot laps at 4 local, with racing at 5.

Wednesday at the Wild West Shootout, Bobby Pierce stayed hot with his second win in three races. He started outside front row, and had a spicy little battle with Shannon Babb for a few laps early on. Later, Garrett Alberson tried to close on Pierce late in lap traffic, but to no avail. So another $10,000 for Pierce, with Alberson second and Babb third at the line. The $100k and $25k bonuses remain alive for the Smooth Operator with three race nights left. Kyle Larson started the night sixth, but DNF'd after some broken suspension took him out. On the modified side, Cade Dillard stayed hot, and is now three for three at the event. If he can win two more times, he'll bag a $15,000 bonus. The Wild West Shootout goes quiet again today, with cars back on track Friday through Sunday.

In some other late model news from yesterday, the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series full timers list for 2024 grew with the addition of Tony Jackson Jr. The 41 year old driver will go for rookie of the year against the previously announced Daniel Adam. Jackson has made just 23 Lucas appearances back to the 2020 season, with a best finish of sixth at East Bay in 2021. He is a multi-time MARS and MLRA champion. Jackson will officially drive the Capital Race Cars house car, using the number 25. That's significant because in recent days we just learned of Shane Clanton stepping back from national touring competition to operate the Capital Race Cars business that he and Chad Smith just purchased from Marshall Green. The addition of Jackson makes it 11 teams at this point to declare for Lucas. That includes defending champion Hudson O'Neal, plus Ricky Thornton Jr., Devin Moran, Tim McCreadie, Boom Briggs, Max Blair, Ross Robinson, Garrett Alberson, Daulton Wilson, and Daniel Adam. We are still about two weeks from the start of the Lucas season down at Golden Isles in Georgia.

That's it for the daily show today. I'm not sure at this moment about my immediate content plans. Depending on what happens tonight and Friday, we might do something extra if there are stories to dive into from Tulsa or Vado. At the very least, we'll be back Sunday with a normal daily, but stick around, because we might sneak in an extra video. There are also some cool things in the works for the future as well outside of the normal realm of daily shows and conversations episodes. I'm in progress on a potential new series of videos involving a top sprint car driver, and maybe a fun little docu series on the horizon as well. So look out for those in the coming days and weeks.

Hope you guys have a great Thursday out there, enjoy the racing, and we'll see you back here soon!