Just days after they participated in the 2025 Tulsa Shootout, NASCAR’s dirt racing aficionados prepare for the country’s most popular Dirt Midget event. The Chili Bowl Nationals will be held at the Tulsa Expo Center in Oklahoma from January 13 (Monday) to January 18 (Saturday). Some notable stock car drivers are a part of the 371-driver entry list.
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Considering the scale of the entries, the competition has been split into five nights of preliminary races. On Monday, Hendrick Motorsports driver Kyle Larson will race in his 1K entry. Brent Crews, a 16-year-old Craftsman Truck Series part-timer and Toyota Driver Development prospect, will join him.
Joe Gibbs Racing star Ty Gibbs and former Xfinity Series drivers Brad Sweet and Todd Kleuver will participate on Tuesday. This will be Gibbs’ Chili Bowl Nationals debut. He was previously restricted from it by the ban that prevented Joe Gibbs Racing drivers from racing outside NASCAR.
Wednesday will again feature some recognizable stock car racing names. Corey Day and Taylor Reimer will be in the action alongside former Xfinity Series part-time driver Katherine Legge. The same restriction that stopped Gibbs from racing also held back Christopher Bell. He will be back on the track on Thursday.
Cup Series part-time Josh Bilicki will join him. On Friday, Kyle Busch and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. will join the party and press ‘end’ on all the preliminary racing. The finale will be held on Saturday. Notably, this will be Busch’s Chili Bowl Nationals debut as well.
How did NASCAR’s best fare in the Tulsa Shootout?
For dirt racing experts Larson and Bell, the shootout went by great. They both went home with Golden Driller trophies. Busch, however, failed to qualify as one of the 24 featured drivers in the divisions that he competed in. He still won two Heat Races in the initial days of the competition.
The biggest moment of the week-long event came on Saturday with Larson and Bell going head-to-head in the non-wing outlaw division. The 55-lap finale was an intense battle between the two veterans, at the end of which Bell prevailed by a narrow lead. Larson, however, won trophies for winning the winged outlaw feature and the winged micro sprint A-main.
The drivers will compete against each other soon. Interestingly, Bell is a three-time winner in the Chili Bowl Nationals. Larson has won it twice. Hence, the upcoming event will be a high-stakes one for both of them.
