From Charles Krall
Brownsburg, Ind. – Bobby East officially kicked off his 2010 racing season by taking home the 17th position in Saturday’s 50-lap championship A-main in the 24th Annual Chili Bowl Midget Nationals at Tulsa Expo Raceway inside the QwikTrip Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
East scored a fifth position finish in Tuesday’s preliminary feature, giving him the third starting position in Saturday’s second B-main. East snared a transfer position into the A-main and was on pace to score a solid finish among the top ten – or better – before an incident with defending race winner Sammy Swindell left East’s Klatt Enterprises No. 4 Ford Racing/ClubSport/Beast Chassis Esslinger-powered Beast with front end damage. East persevered on track to cross the line 17th, leaving Tulsa with pride in knowing he and his team were among the elite to make the A-main but disappointed with the feature result.
“The A-main at the Chili Bowl might be the hardest race in the country to qualify for,” East said. “There are over 260 cars entered and only 24 make the feature on Saturday night. Just making the A-main is a huge accomplishment, especially with the quality of the drivers and teams that are entered. So on one hand we’re proud of what we did. But we’re still disappointed to finish 17th. We thought we had a good car and a chance to get up and run in the top five. Unfortunately we got caught up in someone else’s accident and it knocked the front end out of the car. It was a handful the last few laps but we stayed out and got the best finish we could.”
East will open his chase for both the USAC Silver Crown and Midget championships at the “Copper on Dirt” at USA Raceway in Tucson, Arizona on February 19 and 20.