Latest Chili Bowl Battle of Titans Goes to Kyle Larson

From Autoweek

It was the show deep down inside that everyone paid to see.

Kyle Larson vs. Christopher Bell.

With all due respect, there are other heroic characters inside the Tulsa Expo Center each January. There is Rico Abreu, Justin Grant, Tyler Courtney, Chris Windom and Tanner Thorson. Coming soon are youngsters Cannon McIntosh, Buddy Kofoid and Kaylee Bryson.

They are all winners and champions, but Kyle Larson and Christopher Bell are titans, and their exploits over the last five years at the Chili Bowl Midget Nationals are legendary.

It was the rematch, tied one apiece in head-to-head matchups, that everyone waited 12 months to see decided. The sequels continue to be just as dramatic as those that came before it.

When Bell picked off Grant for second and began to challenge Larson for the lead, it was the latest example of the age-old paradox of what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object.

Unstoppable Force - 1
Immovable Object - 2

Larson won his second consecutive Golden Driller, but only after outlasting an attempted Hail Mary from Bell on the penultimate restart with four laps to go.

The reigning and defending champion took the lead from the outside front row on the second attempt at a start and led every step of the way. Simultaneously, a freshly reworked track just didn’t expand in the way the groundskeepers intended.

So, when Bell couldn’t see a straightforward path around his friend and rival, he attempted to make one off the restart, throwing an ill-fated slider in turn 3 that landed on the cushion and sent his car spiraling into the catchfence.

"It was disappointing, but I left it all on the table," Bell said. "Unfortunately, I came up a little bit short. Hopefully, it was a good race for the fans. I know it was exciting as always here at the Chili Bowl in my seat.

"The track just took forever to widen out and we were just following each other for so long. I knew we were getting towards the end there, so I just laid it all on the line."

That’s what the Unstoppable Force does right? It dares the Immovable Object to stop him, and this time it did.

This won’t be their last match-up, and eventually something will come along that breaks the paradox and is greater than both the Force and the Object, but it doesn’t appear to be anytime soon.

Zeus vs. Cronus
Ali vs. Frazier
Hogan vs. Andre

These are the stories of legend, of no matter which side you root for, appreciate that you were witness to history.

These are the golden years of lore you are going to tell the next generation about.

So, why did the Chili Bowl play out the way that it did?

Larson took the lead from Grant on the second attempt of the initial start and held the position over the remaining 55 laps. Bell threw his Hail Mary and it spiked him into the cushion and into the catchfence. On the ensuing restart, Grant tried a similar tactic but to no avail.

Give credit to where it was due.

Larson was just that good and limited his mistakes, and there were self-admitted mistakes, with both Grant and Bell working to get around him at various points of the feature.

But the track wasn’t conducive to passing up front, either.

"The track just took forever to widen out and we were just following each other for so long," Bell said. "I knew we were getting towards the end there, so I just laid it all on the line."

It’s a shame because the track was arguably at its best during the C-Mains and B-Mains, but the groundskeepers had to rework it because another 55 laps would have resulted in it taking on rubber and becoming locked-down.

Bell and Grant didn’t have a clear second lane as an option against the leader.

When Bell threw his ill-fated slider, he did so against a cushion that was half a lane lower than it had been when the track was at its peak.

It’s something Larson struggled to overcome from the lead, too.

"I could feel (Justin) Grant pressuring me pretty much the whole race," Larson said. "There in the middle portion, the track really curved up. I wasn’t bad then. But at the end it built up a massive curb and I was trying to run hard … but when I would run hard, I’d slam it (the cushion).

"If I ran easy, I’d get tight against it. Once I saw Bell had gotten to second, I knew I had to try to be smarter and not make massive mistakes or I’d let him get by. I made a lot of massive mistakes during that race."

The race came down to which mistake would prove costliest and that was Bell jumping the cushion and out of the race.

Grant said he enjoyed the race, while conceding the technical challenges it presented.

"It was really fast, hammer down there early," Grant said. "Then it turned into a feathery cushion that you could blaze around and then it got really technical at the end. It was cool. It was maybe a little fast, in that it didn’t allow for a lot of sliders because you’re running wide-open but that’s splitting hairs.

"They had a pretty rough looking track going there in the Cs and Bs and it was slicking up. They were under the gun thinking, 'we cannot let this thing take rubber.' It was just five percent to the wet side, but I'm not complaining about it. It had slick middle and big curves."

And it bit Bell.