Anyone tuning in to the Chili Bowl this week? Yesterday was the first night of racing and it did not disappoint. Awesome race to watch and definitely a bucket list race for myself. It’s on FloRacing which means you need a subscription, but it offers some great racing.
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Always on my list for the year. Some of the most exciting racing in any motorsport. Lots of former karters in the mix too.
I went in the early 90s (I was just a toddler) a couple times but I still remember it. Dirt midgets were my first racing love and I used to go watch the local race at Angell Park every weekend when I was a kid.
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Yes, this is my favorite racing week of the year! I LOVE IT!
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What a banger of an opening night! Larson gets the headlines but that show was all Brent Crews. Wins the C, the B and 4th in the A passing 27 cars along the way?!? Ashton Torgerson looked great too - another kart kid. Gotta feel for Golibic - 5th Monday night runner up I think?!? But he’s still locked in on Saturday.
Man there is some wicked young talent in Midgets - some are just a little more patient than the others… lol
Wish they could make a great living there and not feel the need to chase the NASCAR/IndyCar money drains. Very few of them have the budget to be in those financial pipelines.
Covered the race once with USACLive when we launched it (the year Tracy Hines won) - the first live results/notes/photos stream - way before Walkapedia. 
But he flat out owns that process now - such a killer job.
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Crews looked good for sure. Bell looked good in the race of champions. Larson pulled off the “Larson Line” a couple times when he was running down Golibic, takes some serious car control. So much talent there though.
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Another good show tonight. That was a fantastic surface from beginning to end tonight. Fun to see some surprises up front but they totally deserved it - Crouch was the best car of the night overall but man those Matt Wood cars look good in these long runs!
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I think my favorite part of last night was watching the KKM crew get Buddy back out there after his flip. Salvaging a 3rd place on the night is an incredible feat.
That being said, the racing in the qualifiers was ROUGH. At one point, I was wondering if qualifier 2 would have enough cars left to even race. Hopefully a quick word with the drivers tonight will clean it up a little bit.
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I didn’t get to watch much tonight but I saw that former local Badger Kart Club karter Nathan Crane won his heat race, which is cool.
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They do have the front axle of those cars very uncluttered so these swaps are possible. Very different to the pavement midget I’m going to be running this year. Very cool though. Was some great racing all night, early on though the groove was very narrow until they worked the track.
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Where are you running a pavement midget? My son and I watch them at IRP any chance we get.
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That was badass. Saw a lot of drivers with their hands in the mess making sure he made it back out. Those 3 extra spots in that heat made a world of difference in the end.
This is good stuff. What the details on these sprint cars? Engine size? Are these similar to world of outlaws sprint cars (minus wing?)
I am not a dirt guy at all sadly so this next comment may be dumb… but why are they avoiding the part that looks smooth and grippy? Seems like they keep only one or two wheels on it.
I am guessing it has to do with the cushion. It would appear that they prefer to have their back up against the dirt cushion.
One other thing… that infield… looks deadly. Lotta folks chilling behind some low barriers. And these cars seem pretty flippy. Does no one ever lose their shit inside? Do they always go kart wheeling down the track and over the spectator fencing, somehow never heading inwards?
Here’s a clip of everyone deciding to try to occupy the same spot, simultaneously. Our driver watches them wisely from a safe distance.
Oval racing looks amazing. It seems like it teeters right on the edge of a really bad idea, but lands squarely in the camp of Awesome. I’ve only had the pleasure of doing it virtually but absolutely was gobsmacked by how much I loved racing the USF 2000 on the medium ovals.
Not sure why but it really grabbed me, both the unusual nature of the racing but also the feels difference of it, from a driving perspective. Quite eye opening once you get tolerable at it and learn to chase that top end with momentum, maybe 2 gears, and no brakes.
One of the things I’ve wondered, for those of you who get do do this irl, is how do you live without all the constant info we get in sim? For example, how do you know if your laps up or down relative to a car/pack you are closing on? Do you have spotters in all forms of this, communicating via radio like in the game? Im assuming comms aren’t used in the little cars and karts?
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These are dirt midgets, so like a sprint car but smaller footprint and they are mostly running 4-cylinder engines, direct-drive/single-gear. Make about 350 hp and weigh 800 lbs or so. Wild power to weight ratio and no wings to keep them stuck to the track. The Chili Bowl is the biggest midget event; their SuperNats or Daytona 500 or Indy 500.
In dirt racing the rubbered in part of the track is far more slippery than the tacky clay where there is still moisture. As the track dries out and the rubber gets laid down, the top groove (the cushion) and the bottom groove both start to become faster as they still have moisture to keep the track tacky and give you bite. One of the fun things about dirt racing is the track changes a ton from race to race and even within the short race distances, meaning you can set your car up multiple ways to be fast depending on where you think the grip will be or what part of the track you think will come in or work better for you. And that can change through a race so cars tend to come to life or fall off part way through the race.
The infield is pretty exposed but the cars tend to end up on the outer edges of the track because of their momentum.
I love dirt open-wheel because there is a ton of strategy, the race changes constantly, and there is constant battling back and forth.
Well you’re an outlier because you run with more data shit on your screen than almost anyone I know in sim racing. 
Same as rental karts; no fancy on-board telemetry data, just flags and corner workers. Helps that there is only 2 corners to worry about so you can see pretty much everything that’s happening during the race. And a lot of the tuning and feedback is right down to the driver and how they are feeling and noticing things evolve during the race.
Pretty common at dirt races to see the drivers or crew walk out onto the track during intermissions to physically touch and inspect the track to see how it’s changing run-to-run.
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Thanks, TJ, that helps. Just watched a bunch of races and it was great watching. This is a whole lot more interesting to me than super speedway or f1 type stuff. It truly is sprinting with a bunch of really dynamic jockeying for position. It’s like rental racing savagery but with consequences. The driving is very close and was mostly very good, with a few unhinged moments, which contribute mightily to the entertainment (no injuries, thankfully, which is pretty incredible given how bouncy some of these hits are).
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I’ll be up here in the PNW, mostly Washington with a little Idaho. It’ll be my first year in a midget, driving someone else’s car. Should be fun, hope it goes well.
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