High Five for Abreu

TULSA, Okla. – A familiar face drove into Victory Lane at the River Spirit Expo Center on Wednesday night as St. Helena, California’s Rico Abreu drove to his fifth Chili Bowl Midget Nationals preliminary win.

All five wins for Abreu have come with Keith Kunz Motorsports and it locks him into Saturday night’s A-Main.

“This is for my guys, Keith Kunz, Pete Willoughby,” Abreu said. “This is my eighth Chili Bowl with them, and this goes back to my dad pushing me to follow my dreams.”

It’s been well documented that there have been some changes at Keith Kunz Motorsports heading into this year’s Chili Bowl, both three-time champion Christopher Bell and last year’s runner-up Kyle Larson both decided to leave the team after their 2019 venture.

Despite the shakeup, Rico stayed loyal, and it paid off.

“I come from a unique family and background, with my stature, I have been granted a lot of opportunities, as I’ve matured in my racing career, and I really understand how important people are and the people who support you.” Abreu said. “I’m really loyal, I started my career with Keith, and I’m going to finish my career with him.”

It took Rico 13 laps to chase down World of Outlaws champion Brad Sweet, but it wasn’t for a lack of effort. After a lap eleven slider attempt, Rico wheeled the outside of the race track two laps later and passed Sweet for the lead.

“You got to be patient, and know where you’re at on the track, and how it’s developed throughout the week. I just tried to bide my time through traffic and wait for Brad to make a mistake.” Abreu said.

“I feel like Keith focuses on the last 10 laps of the race, and that’s when the races are won. I’m so confident in my team and they will always have me fast at the end of the race.”

Winged Nation/Rip the Fence Chili Bowl Interviews

A lap 16 slide job attempt from Ronnie Gardner came up short on Brad Sweet for the second position. Gardner stalled the car and brought out the caution, with no room to go, Colby Copeland drove over the front end of Gardner.

“You know the pace slowed up, and Ronnie Gardner tried to slide the lap car and I just monster trucked him to try to not stall it,” Copeland said. “After that we had a leak in the radiator or something and the temps went up, we’re lucky to be here. I was overheating the engine was stumbling on restarts.”

On the restart, Copeland took the second spot, followed by Gravel and Chase Johnson who raced hard in traffic.

Copeland impressively went on to finish second despite engine temps pegged and locked into Saturday night’s A-main.

After a few cautions, on lap 26, Blake Hahn and Brad Sweet made contact, ultimately ending Sweet’s night. Hahn went on to finish third.

“I like to think that our equipment is some of the best out here,” Hahn said. “It’s really cool that we can run eight times a year and come here and have success. It means a lot.”

Abreu joins prelim night winners Cannon McIntosh and Kyle Larson as locks in the Saturday night A-main. Abreu has now won prelim features in five of the last six years.

“It’s pretty impressive to win 5,” Abreu said. “I’ve always come here really prepared, and it all starts with your heat race and getting through your qualifier, and getting good track position for the feature.”

Copeland’s second-place finish also locks him into the Saturday night A-main along with Tuesday night’s prelim second place finisher Jonathon Beason and Monday night’s second place finisher Tyler Courtney. Christopher Bell is locked into Saturday night’s main event with his win in the Race of Champions Race on Tuesday.

Results

Heat 1 (8 Laps): 1. 57D-Daniel Robinson[3]; 2. 50-Daniel Adler[4]; 3. 2M-Colby Stubblefield[2]; 4. 15F-Kinzer Edwards[9]; 5. 0-Billy VanInwegen Jr[7]; 6. 7J-Shawn Jackson[5]; 7. 51G-Garet Williamson[1]; 8. 37-Eddie Tafoya Jr[6]; 9. 4F-Chad Frewaldt[8]

Heat 2 (8 Laps): 1. 16C-David Camfield Jr[1]; 2. 15A-Harley Hollan[2]; 3. 9-Tim McCreadie[6]; 4. 88N-DJ Netto[3]; 5. 08K-Karsyn Elledge[4]; 6. 1P-Holly Porter[5]; 7. 101-Chuck McGillivray[8]; 8. 17K-Michael Koontz[7]; 9. (DNS) 68S-Scott Scherb

Heat 3 (8 Laps): 1. 25C-Chase Johnson[2]; 2. 1R-Brad Sweet[7]; 3. 45X-Parker Price Miller[1]; 4. 67J-Chase Jones[5]; 5. 75X-Mike Griffiths[3]; 6. 85-Matt Moore[8]; 7. 22C-Charlie Crumpton[4]; 8. 80-Joe Spillman[6]

Heat 4 (8 Laps): 1. 14-Jesse Colwell[1]; 2. 27W-Colby Copeland[3]; 3. 52-Blake Hahn[5]; 4. 22X-Steven Shebester[4]; 5. 14E-Jake Neal[2]; 6. 2T-Keith Martin[8]; 7. 2D-Matt Sherrell[7]; 8. 99R-Brad Bowden[6]

Heat 5 (8 Laps): 1. 1-Sammy Swindell[1]; 2. 73T-Jake Swanson[3]; 3. 84-Giovanni Scelzi[8]; 4. 2G-JJ Yeley[4]; 5. 35X-Tyler Robbins[5]; 6. 3W-Brandon Waelti[7]; 7. 13B-Johnny Brown Jr[6]; 8. 18S-Santino Ferrucci[2]

Heat 6 (8 Laps): 1. 97-Rico Abreu[7]; 2. 97K-Tom Harris[4]; 3. 91T-Tyler Thomas[6]; 4. 54-Matt Westfall[2]; 5. 71R-Robby Josett[5]; 6. 91-Jeff Stasa[3]; 7. 54G-Trey Gropp[8]; 8. 8B-Colin Deming[1]

Heat 7 (8 Laps): 1. 14S-Clinton Boyles[2]; 2. 40-Eric Wilkins[6]; 3. 6N-Ryan Newman[7]; 4. 8W-Mark Lowrey[8]; 5. 130-Larry Bratti[1]; 6. 99K-Robert Carson[3]; 7. 2L-Landon Simon[4]; 8. 11E-Cory Elliott[5]

Heat 8 (8 Laps): 1. 68-Ronnie Gardner[3]; 2. 76G-David Gravel[4]; 3. 97X-Austin Odell[1]; 4. 11G-Mike Goodman[5]; 5. 14J-Matt Streeter[6]; 6. 4D-Robert Dalby[7]; 7. 18K-Tony Gualda Jr[2]; 8. 77J-John Klabonde[8]

C-Features: Top 4 advance to corresponding B-Feature.

C-Main 1 (12 Laps): 1. 4D-Robert Dalby[1]; 2. 2D-Matt Sherrell[6]; 3. 7J-Shawn Jackson[3]; 4. 14E-Jake Neal[2]; 5. 4F-Chad Frewaldt[12]; 6. 37-Eddie Tafoya Jr[10]; 7. 91-Jeff Stasa[5]; 8. 77J-John Klabonde[8]; 9. 101-Chuck McGillivray[4]; 10. 17K-Michael Koontz[9]; 11. 22C-Charlie Crumpton[7]; 12. 8B-Colin Deming[13]; 13. 99R-Brad Bowden[11]

C-Main 2 (12 Laps): 1. 75X-Mike Griffiths; 2. 130-Larry Bratti; 3. 1P-Holly Porter; 4. 54G-Trey Gropp; 5. 99K-Robert Carson; 6. 13B-Johnny Brown Jr; 7. 2L-Landon Simon; 8. 18K-Tony Gualda Jr; 9. 51G-Garet Williamson; 10. 80-Joe Spillman; 11. 18S-Santino Ferrucci; (DNS) 11E-Cory Elliott; (DNS) 68S-Scott Scherb

Team Toyota Qualifiers: Top 16 in combined passing points advance to the A-Feature.

Qualifier 1 (10 Laps): 1. 52-Blake Hahn[1]; 2. 14S-Clinton Boyles[4]; 3. 1-Sammy Swindell[2]; 4. 97-Rico Abreu[6]; 5. 9-Tim McCreadie[3]; 6. 67J-Chase Jones[7]; 7. 57D-Daniel Robinson[5]; 8. 54-Matt Westfall[9]; 9. 22X-Steven Shebester[8]; 10. 35X-Tyler Robbins[10]

Qualifier 2 (10 Laps): 1. 1R-Brad Sweet[6]; 2. 68-Ronnie Gardner[5]; 3. 15F-Kinzer Edwards[1]; 4. 71R-Robby Josett[10]; 5. 91T-Tyler Thomas[3]; 6. 11G-Mike Goodman[7]; 7. 8W-Mark Lowrey[2]; 8. 50-Daniel Adler[4]; 9. 2G-JJ Yeley[8]; 10. 85-Matt Moore[9]

Qualifier 3 (10 Laps): 1. 27W-Colby Copeland[2]; 2. 97K-Tom Harris[4]; 3. 88N-DJ Netto[8]; 4. 16C-David Camfield Jr[3]; 5. 6N-Ryan Newman[5]; 6. 45X-Parker Price Miller[7]; 7. 15A-Harley Hollan[1]; 8. 08K-Karsyn Elledge[10]; 9. 40-Eric Wilkins[6]; 10. 2T-Keith Martin[9]

Qualifier 4 (10 Laps): 1. 73T-Jake Swanson[2]; 2. 76G-David Gravel[4]; 3. 25C-Chase Johnson[5]; 4. 14-Jesse Colwell[3]; 5. 84-Giovanni Scelzi[6]; 6. 97X-Austin Odell[7]; 7. 2M-Colby Stubblefield[1]; 8. 0-Billy VanInwegen Jr[9]; 9. 14J-Matt Streeter[8]; 10. 3W-Brandon Waelti[10]

B-Main 1 (15 Laps): 1. 14-Jesse Colwell[1]; 2. 9-Tim McCreadie[2]; 3. 57D-Daniel Robinson[3]; 4. 2G-JJ Yeley[10]; 5. 0-Billy VanInwegen Jr[9]; 6. 2D-Matt Sherrell[14]; 7. 85-Matt Moore[11]; 8. 15A-Harley Hollan[7]; 9. 4D-Robert Dalby[13]; 10. 54-Matt Westfall[8]; 11. 7J-Shawn Jackson[15]; 12. 14E-Jake Neal[16]; 13. 8W-Mark Lowrey[6]; 14. 97X-Austin Odell[5]; 15. 11G-Mike Goodman[4]; 16. 35X-Tyler Robbins[12]

B-Main 2 (15 Laps): 1. 91T-Tyler Thomas[2]; 2. 45X-Parker Price Miller[4]; 3. 08K-Karsyn Elledge[8]; 4. 67J-Chase Jones[3]; 5. 22X-Steven Shebester[9]; 6. 18K-Tony Gualda Jr[16]; 7. 54G-Trey Gropp[13]; 8. 15F-Kinzer Edwards[1]; 9. 14J-Matt Streeter[10]; 10. 1P-Holly Porter[15]; 11. 2M-Colby Stubblefield[7]; 12. 3W-Brandon Waelti[12]; 13. 2T-Keith Martin[11]; 14. 50-Daniel Adler[6]; 15. 2L-Landon Simon[14]; 16. 40-Eric Wilkins[5]