News from the Source

The AFS Badger Midget Series Review of Chili Bowl 2025

The AFS Badger Midget Series Review of Chili Bowl 2025

The 2025 Chili Bowl Nationals results have been stamped in history and several Advanced Fastening Supply Badger Midget Auto Racing Association teams made the ten-plus hour haul to Tulsa, Oklahoma to see how they stacked up against the rest of the midget racing world.

The logistics for most of the BMARA teams were similar. They arrived on Friday to move their trailers into the Tulsa Expo Raceway building ahead of the Sunday practice day. Then each would race on one “Preliminary Night,” between Monday and Friday. They wait until Championship Saturday to race again. Before, during and after the races there is a lot of downtime.

Come Saturday, based on how they fared on that first night, each driver is seeded into a “Main” that starts with one of two P-Main’s for the runners with the least points and graduates to the single A-Main on the final night. No Badger drivers made it to the main event on Saturday and in describing their results below, we won’t parse whether they were racing in “L-Main One" or “L-Main Two.” The closer they were to the A when their day was done on Saturday arguably indicates where they stacked up versus the other 392 cars entered.

A pill draw determined the heat and starting position to start each Prelim Night. From there a fair but complicated passing point system is used to help cars advance. After the heat race which each car scheduled for the night is slated to race in, they are then assigned to either one of two C-Mains on the night or get to run a “Qualifier.” The cars with the least amount of passing points are relegated to a C. The top four cars in each C tag the back of one the two B-Mains.

After the Qualifiers, the top 16 cars based on passing points go right to the night’s A-Main while the rest get one more chance to make the A by running the Bs where the top four in each earn a berth in the A.

There were many drivers in the field over the week with Badger ties, Jerry and Cale Coons, and former BMARA champions Mike Hess, Chase McDermand and Christopher Bell highlight some of them. Below is an account of the current Badger cars.

There are ways to quantify the end result beyond the obvious which is who finished where in Saturday’s A-Main. No Badger cars accomplished that feat. But some had good Preliminary Night runs. Without considering who finished where in their specific “Alphabet Soup” race on Saturday we’ll simply consider which Main was their last on Championship Night.

To that end, Daniel Robinson in the 2024 BMARA Owner’s Championship #57 car of Bill Ecker had the best finish on Saturday. He made the C-Main on the final night finishing 13th. Earlier in the week Robinson ran a Qualifier and finished 13th in his Preliminary Night A-Main. Robinson’s mount was the only Badger car that took out their Badger engine in favor of a national power plant.

2024 BMARA and MARA champ Parker Jones ended his Chili Bowl with a D-Main run. That was hardly the story of the Jones effort as on his Preliminary Night he made the A-Main and was in a position to likely make Saturday’s B-Main. A late race tangle with CJ Leary while trying to remain in the top-five brought out a caution and Jones ended up 18th. Still for the Wisconsin faithful it was an exciting night as the Chili Bowl sophomore also went from 6th to 2nd in his heat and 5th to 3rd in his Qualifier. The Badger engine Jones and his fellow BMARA drivers use is considered to be about 50 horsepower lower than the national engines most teams had.

Veteran Brandon Waelti who has made the Championship A-Main in the past, won his heat in the familiar Club LaMark #3 on his first night. He came up one spot short from making the A, finishing 5th in his Semi. On Saturday he raced the E-Main with a 15th place finish.

“Shirtless” Nathan Crane thrilled folks on and off the track as he went without a shirt during the day, which is one of his race day superstitions and took a heat in his first ever Chili Bowl run. He couldn’t parlay that into an A berth as his weekday run ended in the B. On Saturday his racing began and ended in the F. Crane drove a second Jones Motorsports car as a teammate to Parker Jones.

Zach Boden made his Qualifier during the week after running a respectable 3rd in his heat. A B-Main run was the best he could muster on his opening night. Saturday his Chili Bowl was done in the G.

Todd Kluever in a second Waelti car only got as far as the C during the week, but came back with a win in Saturday’s L-Main on a newly reworked track. Starting 11th in the K he needed to be in the top six but came up short ending his day.

Chili Bowl rookie Eric Blumer only got two laps in during his heat race relegating him to a night-one C. He started in the same L on Saturday as Kluever and ended where he started with a photo finish sixth place run, good enough to transfer. Starting shotgun on the field for the K, his Tulsa trip ended there.

Tommy Colburn, running a second Boden car, was competing in his second Chili Bowl and ran mid-pack in his heat and C during the week and unfortunately suffered a DNF in his Saturday K-Main.

Bowl veteran Brian Peterson who camped with the Phantom Chassis stable during the week, finished 10th on his opening night C, a race won by Mike Hess. On Saturday, Peterson probably had the trickiest track of the day. It looked to be about a groove and a half on the bottom with a bumpy and treacherous topside. The first half of the race, running the bottom it looked as if he could transfer. Then some cars tried the top, found grip and got by the Mukwonago pilot ending his Bowl.

The Badger contingent to include officials and fans represented the club well during the week. President Quinn McCabe networked and conducted an amount of business as usual. There were a lot of supporters wearing Badger gear and the party, complete with a live musician, in the Waelti pit was rivaled only by the officially sanctioned pit party.

Looking forward, fans are reminded that the 2025 Badger season kicks off at Beaver Dam Raceway on Saturday, April 26, with the Glen Hepfner Memorial Spring Opener.

Article and photo by Bill Blumer Jr. (BMARA Media)

Forgot Password?