TULSA, Okla. - Adding to the list of first time winners at Oklahoma’s Tulsa Expo Raceway, Travis Berryhill solidified his spot in Saturday’s championship feature event with a win in Wednesday night’s qualifying action at the 31st annual Chili Bowl Midget Nationals.
The 42nd different preliminary night winner in Chili Bowl history, Berryhill was chased to the line by Jake Swanson and Colby Copeland, with all three punching their ticket into Saturday’s A-Main for the first time.
“Man it takes a lot of pressure off,” Berryhill said. “I’ve been in a B-Main here but I’ve never been in a Saturday night A-Main, so I’m pretty proud of that. I’ve been to in the ‘B’ and been close, and down to the Q main event, or whatever they are down to these days, and everywhere in between. So when you are down there in those things it’s a struggle and it’s stressful because you never know what you are going to get, especially the further you get down.
“I’ve been all the way through them. Last year we had a pretty poor qualifying night. We were fast but we just couldn’t put it all together. Then Saturday night we really bared down and threw some stuff at it that worked and we went through three or four main events last year. I carried a little bit of that confidence over to this year as well.”
Starting in fifth, Berryhill wasted no time advancing to the point. Battling with Andrew Felker on the third lap, Berryhill rolled to the top spot on lap 4 with a move off the second turn with Kevin Bayer in tow.
Following a caution on lap 6, the chase for the lead was on between Berryhill and Bayer. The margin for the lead was by inches at times as Bayer built momentum for a pass on lap 10.
Berryhill took advantage of a bobble by Bayer three laps later to retake the lead. On lap 15, the leaders raced their way into lap traffic when the caution flew, setting up a single file restart.
On the restart, fourth place running Andrew Felker lost power to force another caution, advancing Jake Swanson into fourth. Back under green, Berryhill was able to slip away to a 1.824 second advantage. From there, he went on to score the victory with Swanson and Copeland in tow. Gary Taylor crossed the line in fourth, followed by Tyler Thomas in fifth.
Ryan Robinson, Sammy Swindell, Donny Schatz, Casey Shuman and Brent Beauchamp rounded out the top ten.
Wednesday’s qualifying slate saw 88 drivers making the call to bring the event total to 178. The 31st annual Chili Bowl Nationals continues on Thursday and is presented by John Christner Trucking.
For more information, visit ChiliBowl.com.
Chili Bowl Nationals
Tulsa Expo Raceway – Tulsa, OK
Night 2 Results – Jan. 11, 2017
A-Feature
1. 31-Travis Berryhill
2. 68W-Jake Swanson
3. 51X-Colby Copeland
4. 05T-Gary Taylor
5. 91T-Tyler Thomas
6. 71-Ryan Robinson
7. 1-Sammy Swindell
8. 15-Donny Schatz
9. 32-Casey Shuman
10. 2A-Brent Beauchamp
11. 9P-Parker Price-Miller
12. 47W-Dylan Westbrook
13. 4P-Paul McMahan
14. 5E-David Gravel
15. 92-Brenden Bright
16. 51S-Danny Sheridan
17. 32T-Trey Marcham
18. 5C-Colten Cottle
19. 11D-Danny Faria, Jr.
20. 69-A.J. Fike
21. 50-Daniel Adler
22. 91K-Kevin Bayer
23. 52-Blake Hahn
24. 1A-Andrew Felker
