Lonnie Wheatley, NIXA, Mo. (January 17, 2020) – The 34th Annual Lucas Oil Chili Bowl Nationals at the Tulsa Expo Raceway couldn’t arrive soon enough for Kyle Bellm.
Now the time has come, as the accomplished Sprint Car racer from Nixa, MO, will take the wheel of the Chad Shields Racing Fontana-powered AFD Graphics/Schure Built Suspension No. 4c Ripper-chassis Midget for Friday’s Vacuworx Qualifying night atop the indoor, 1/5-mile clay oval.
It will mark Bellm’s seventh time to compete at the prestigious event that draws a field of approximately 350 competitors from all forms of motorsports around the world. Friday’s card will include approximately 75 of those entries with the top two finishers advancing on to Saturday’s 55-lap championship main event and the rest of the field fielding out the day’s alphabet soup of feature events based upon the preliminary finish.
“I’m excited about the opportunity to team with Chad Shields Racing for this year’s Chili Bowl,” Bellm says. “The car felt really nice in practice on Monday, we made a couple of little adjustments and I think we can be really competitive on Friday night.”
Bellm raced into last year’s Friday night preliminary feature and was moving forward only to get collected by a spinning car.
He went on to finish out the weekend in Saturday “E” Main action, among the top 1/3 of the 350 car field, despite a cut tire that cut his run short while dicing for a transfer position.
“That was a last minute deal and we didn’t even get practice and did pretty well with it,” Bellm recalls. “This time around, we were able to get a few laps in to get acclimated to the year and that puts me ahead of where I was last year going into Friday night. So, if we can have just a little bit of Chili Bowl luck on our side, hopefully that can translate into a good finish.”
Bellm comes off a 2019 season that included a Lake Ozark Speedway feature win among his 15 top-ten runs in 36 overall starts that included his first World of Outlaws feature start to wrap up the season.
Bellm will feature a similar schedule in 2020, competing in a variety of winged 360-ci and 410-ci Sprint Car events throughout the region.
2019 Quick Stats: 36 Races, 1 win, 6 top-fives, 15 top-tens.
Up Next: Lucas Oil Chili Bowl Nationals preliminary on Friday night and finale on Saturday night.
Keep Track: Keep track of Kyle Bellm’s on-track action including schedule and results at http://www.kylebellm.com/, on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/KyleBellmRacing?fref=ts or on Twitter at @kylebellmracing.
If you would like Kyle Bellm Racing press releases e-mailed directly to you, send your e-mail address to Lonnie Wheatley at lonniewheatley@gmail.com.
- administrator on Jan 17, 2020
- Article Date: 1/17/2020 by Lonnie Wheatley