Jamie Massey, Victorious in the Chili Bowl Season Opener

February 11th 2024, Words by AJ Hunsinger; Photos by James & Jared Murphy

It was a stacked field in race one of the League of Outlaws 2024 Season B schedule as 18 drivers registered for the event. League of Outlaws officials made the decision to only start 12 cars due to the size of the track which meant only 4 drivers in each of the 3 heat races would transfer into the Feature and no B-Main. This ramped up the intensity a ton and with drivers only being thousandths of a second faster than the next, track position was crucial and it was very difficult to pass on the tight Chili Bowl track.

Heat race 1 consisted of 3 guys making their first ever League of Outlaws IMCA Style Modified start along with Mitchell Maynard and Christian White. Brett Caudill, led the field to the green flag. Devin Eudaley, missed the heat race and would also missed due to steering wheel problems and would not run again for the rest of the night. The field stretched out quickly and Michael Swenson held the 4th and final transfer spot most of the race. In the final handful of laps, Mitchell Maynard made a run at Swenson for the final transfer spot but came up short. Brett Caudill would win with White 2nd, Wineland 3rd, and Swenson and Maynard would finish 4th and 5th.

Chris R. Cox would lead the other 5 drivers to the green in heat race #2. Lap 1 corner 1, Trevor Doyle and BJ Goodnight both sent it sailing a little too hard behind Cox. The two drivers would get together which caused a stack up as Jared Murphy, AJ Hunsinger, and James Murphy would all make some sort of contact. The final result ended with Doyle and Goodnight into the outside wall and the caution would wave.

On the restart, it was Cox, Jared Murphy, Hunsinger, and James Murphy all sitting in a transfer spot. Hunsinger and Jared Murphy would battle hard for the 2nd place position while also being mindful of each of them being in a transfer spot as well as James Murphy right behind them. The three of them ran down Chris Cox who jumped out to a comfortable lead early in the heat race. Cox was just a smidge slower than the other three and they were all right there together.

On the final lap in turns 3 and 4, Cox would get a shot in the back bumper by Jared Murphy due to Cox being just a little bit slower and Cox would get extremely sideways in front of the field. They would all but come to a complete stop as all the cars would just pile into one another. It was a race to get back going to get across the line in a transfer spot. Cox would cross the line 1st, Jared Murphy in 2nd, BJ Goodnight would skate through to 3rd, Hunsinger limped across in 4th, Trevor Doyle in 5th, with James Murphy finishing 6th after once running in a transfer spot heading into turn 3 on the final lap.

The 3rd and final head would only have 5 drivers meaning only one driver was going home early. Trevor Williams and Jamie Massey would pace the field from the front row with Jayden Freiburger in 3rd, Brayden Avila in 4th, and league admin Aiden Schulte in 5th. Massey would control the race after taking the lead on the high side. He would lead the field the entire heat race with Williams finishing 2nd, Avila 3rd, Freiburger 4th, and Schulte 5th.

Heat 1 winner Brett Caudill led the feature field of 12 drivers to the green flag and a caution would fly early on lap 3 as Tayler Wineland came up the track on the straightaway, right across the nose of the #57 of Trevor Williams. The contact sent Windeland hard into the outside wall and he would be done for the night.

Green flag back out and Cox and Massey would do some heavily battling for the top spot while 3rd-5th would race 3 wide, if you could believe it, at the Chili Bowl. Cox would pull away to a comfortable lead eventually but the comfort wouldn’t last long as a yellow flag would come out on lap 16 after Hunsinger lost connection to the race session. This would cause his #31 car to come to a complete stop on the straightaway, right in front off Swenson and Swenson would get heavy damage from running into Hunsinger. Both cars would miss the rest of the race.

Massey was finally able to get around Cox for the race lead, once again doing so on the high side. After some amazing racing with drivers using both lanes to maneuver around one another, the race would go green from lap 16 to the last lap on lap 60. Jamie Massey, would collect his 3rd LoO IMCA Style Modified (LoO) win on the season. Cox would come home 2nd, Caudill 3rd, Trevor C. Williams 4th, and Jared Murphy rounding out the top 5.

Payout

1st Place- $25 (Jamie Massey)
2nd Place- $20 (Chris R. Cox)
3rd Place- $15 (Brett Caudill)
4th Place- $10 (Trevor C. Williams))
5th Place- $5 (Jared Murphy)