Kevin Swindell Dominates Day 3 of the Chili Bowl

[media-credit id=30 align=”alignright” width=”200″][/media-credit]Night 3 of the Chili Bowl was a rough and ragged night of racing. Caution Flag followed caution flag and there were 3 different races that it required multiple attempts to even get a single lap of competition in. But when the dust settled it was a familiar name in victory lane. That name was Swindell. Not Sammy but Kevin. Following in his father’s footsteps the younger Swindell dominated the evening when he was on the track. The major difference one runs the top one runs the bottom. It makes it very easy to imagine a Swindell road block in the Chili Bowl on Saturday.

The third night of the Chili Bowl was pushing hard to beat its 11:00 PM curfew. The competitors managed to pull it out with 8 minutes to spare. But not before a very scary crash involving J.J. Yeley.

Yeley who bobbled early in the A main and was shuffled back to 10^th was charging back up thru the field and had made it back to 6^th and was battling for 5^th when the 4^th and 5^th place cars tangled leaving Yeley no where to go. Yeley ended up hard on his roof and then had contact with another car. Yeley who escaped without injury was unable to return to the race and finished a very disappointing 22^nd.

There was some question in regards to the track maintenance that was done between the C-mains and the B-mains. The track became very wet and very slick making the surface a dirt covered skating rink. The drivers though concerned put on a terrific show in the B Mains with Tracy Hines showing a number of brilliant top to bottom slide moves to move up to the A main. He was never a factor however in the race starting on the next to last row.

Brad Sweet, driving for Kasey Kahne Racing, had a quietly dominant night leading the points all night and into the A main. Sweet would challenge Swindell the entire race and would run 2^nd all night until a late race restart would allow Shane Cottle to slide around him out of 3 to take second. Cottle however was unable to cut into Swindell’s straight away lead in the 3 laps remaining and took home second place with Sweet coming home in 3^rd.

The Chili Bowl line up is up to 9 going into the 4^th night of qualifying tomorrow. But the closer it gets the more apparent it becomes that if you are going to win the Chili Bowl you are going to have to beat a Swindell. With the father and son team having won 4 of the last 5 it would appear that it will take more than speed and talent. It would appear that if you are to beat the Swindells for the Golden Driller it will take a great deal of luck.

Your 9 lock ins so far are: Kyle Larson, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Michael Pickens, Sammy Swindell, Danny Stratton, Tony Stewart, Kevin Swindell, Shane Cottle, Brad Sweet. We will add three more lock ins tomorrow evening as the Chili Bowl approaches.

Shame Hmiel was in attendance tonight along with his driver for tomorrow’s qualifying action Levi Jones. Hmiel showed great humor and great spirit in an interview conducted in the pit area. It was certainly a wonderful thing to see Shane back at the track and still pushing to improve his ability and status. Hmiel who suffered a severe spinal cord injury last summer that left him a quadriplegic said he has a work out routine that is 6 to 8 hours a day. His goal he says is to be able to take his self out of the wheel chair and put his self in his bed so that his parents don’t have to do it.

Also in attendance tonight were Gary Bettenhausen and Bobby Unser.

The Chili Bowl will resume at 5:30 PM CSTtomorrow at the QT Expo in TulsaOklahoma. The event is a sell out. There is no video available until the tentative Jan 28 2012air date with Speed but you can listen to a live radio stream from .