OneDirt

Shane Cottle Celebrates His Win (Image Credit: MidgetMadness.com)

Friday was the fourth and final night of prelims before the championship finale of the 25^th annual Lucas Oil Chili Bowl.  After the dust had settled it was Shane Cottle in victory lane of the Vacuworx International Qualifying Race.  Cottle who is from Kokomo, Indiana grabbed the lead on the first lap from his third starting spot and led the rest of the 25 laps.  He piloted his #1^st Spike Chassis/Daryl Saciuer’s Chevy-powered/Lucas Oil/ J&S Consulting midget to his second career Chili Bowl preliminary feature win after taking his first one in 2007.  Cottle, who is now locked into Saturday’s finale, said “Daryl (Saucier) has put a good car together, it’s a lot better than the last one, “Daryl (Saucier) has put a good car together, it’s a lot better than the last one.  You’ve got a put a good car together to beat these guys, and I think he’s done it.”

Kevin Swindell, Shane Cottle, and Dave Darland (Image Credit: Hoseheads.com)

While Cottle led the whole feature there was a great battle taking place behind him for the last two lock-in spots for the finale.  Finishing in second place was Dave Darland from Lincoln, Indiana in his #4x Spike Chassis/Wilke Pak Motorsports/Toyota-powered/Speedway Motors race car.  Darland held off several challenges from Kevin Swindell said, “Kevin was still better than I was at that end of the track (three and four), but we were really good down in one and two but in three and four we struggled until the last couple of laps.”

Dave Darland #4x (Image Credit: Hoseheads.com)

Swindell ended his night in third spot which locked him into the finale and gives him a chance to become the first repeat winner in Chili Bowl history.  Swindell held off Brad Loyet in his #39 Spike Chassis/Swindell Motorsports/Esslinger/John Christner Trucking/NOS Energy Drinks/SoapSports.com/Red Line Oil/Hoosier Tire midget and spoke of his race afterwards saying, “I had to rough him (Loyet) a little bit, but thinking of either running the ‘B’ Feature or ‘A’ Main hot laps late on Saturday night it’s worth kinda using someone a little bit.  I felt like he used me and Dave a little bit so it didn’t hurt me to feed it back.”  The rest of the top ten consisted of Brad Loyet, Daryn Pittman, Chris Windom, Cory Kruseman, Dakoda Armstrong, Danny Stratton, and Johnny Heydenreich.  Saturday will be the alphabet soup of preliminary main events starting with the K-Main and culminating in the 50 lap A-Main and championship finale of the Chili Bowl.