Mike Campbell Photo
(January 11, 2026) – Darin Naida made what has become a familiar trip to Tulsa, Oklahoma in January to compete in the 40th Annual Chili Bowl Nationals at the Tulsa Expo Raceway inside of the Sage Net Center.
Naida, from Adrian, Michigan, has become a regular to winter racing in Tulsa first competing in the Tulsa Shootout in 2019 and taking on the Chili Bowl since 2023. Naida’s first year at the Chili Bowl saw him make his preliminary feature, but since has run into issues the past two seasons during his adventures in Tulsa. Naida hopes to use those lessons learned to make the preliminary feature again in 2026 and build upon that.
“I think the biggest thing about getting around Expo center is just not being afraid to stand on the gas, as simple as the sounds,” said Naida. “You almost got to be patiently aggressive. There’s a lot of guys that go there and race midgets once a year. I’m one of them. There’s also a lot of guys that aren’t quite in control and are kind of all over the place. If you can survive your heat race and get by a couple guys, that puts you in a good position to make a qualifier, and then really, my biggest deal.”
The 2026 Chili Bowl effort is with legendary road racing crew chief Dan Binks from nearby Brighton, Michigan. In preparation for their Chili Bowl effort Binks has prepared another version of a three-cylinder engine with several customized parts developed from scratch for the event after using a most conventional four-cylinder engine last year.
“I’ve always been comfortable working with Dan. He’s always surrounded us with good people, whether it be working with Kody Swanson and Justin Grant helped us out a little bit. . Everything has been consistent other than the engine program. I drive the same car every year. Being back with a three cylinder now, I have a lot of confidence considering how well I felt the first time we ran it. I know Dan’s made a lot of adjustments and changes from the previous iteration of the three cylinder to try to make it better.”
Binks has been hard at work designing and procuring a myriad of custom-made parts and pieces for this version of his engine for Tulsa.
“When I ran the three-cylinder in 2023 it was all based off the LS Corvette stuff that they did at the end,” said Naida of the unique engine. “Now Dan just made whatever changes he’s wanted to make. Dan made some little changes to make the engine smoother, make mower power on the bottom and top end, and other changes he wanted to make throughout.”
Naida is comfortable with the experimentation coming from several generations of races that linked to experiment with race cars with his grandfather John often building his own chassis and cars and his father Dain who would often try outside of the box configurations on his entries. While this interview was taking place, Binks and other team members were at the Chassis dyno to fine tune things before their trip to Tulsa.
“There was no major catastrophe or anything together, as far as I’m aware. I was told they were making good progress on everything, just doing some fine tuning on everything.”
Joining Naida for this Chili Bowl effort this season is Oklahoma resident Jason McDougal, who has multiple wins in the Tulsa Shootout and has assisted with Naida’s effort on the mechanical side in the past. This year McDougal and Naida team up with Binks as driving teammates for the Chili Bowl, which Naida was enthusiastically looking forward to.
“Jason has worked with me more on the crew chief side for my last two Chili Bowl trips,” said Naida of his past efforts with McDougal at Tulsa. “I felt like we had really good speed both times we worked together.”
After Tulsa Naida’s races for the 2026 season are not as clear. Other than a handful of races in Marc Daily’s sprint car, which Naida drove to a front row starting position with the World of Outlaws last fall at Lincoln Park Speedway, Naida has nothing definitively lined up for the 2026 season.
During 2025 Naida competed with the All Star Circuit of Champions finishing fifth in the point standings with four top five finishes but missed out on an elusive victory with the series. Highlights included the first Fremont Speedway feature victory of his career and making the Kings Royal A-Main event.
Focused on Tulsa, Naida hopes that a successful preliminary night can keep their week at the Chili Bowl on the right track.
“I’d really like to make my preliminary A-Main and finish well enough to be in either the A, B or C on Saturday. I don’t expect to walk into Saturday’s A-Main or anything like that, but I feel like if I can survive my preliminary and at least put on in the B or C main, I feel like that’d be a success compared to years past. But obviously step one is just keeping everything together at that point.”
Other Notes
• The other Michigan based entry comes from Bratt Wyatt, formerly of Brownstown, Michigan and now lives near Kearney , Missouri will compete in his own entry. Wyatt’s son Beau recently competed at the Tulsa Shootout in the Junior Sprint category, finishing 9th in the finale.
• The Butler Motor Speedway and Great Lakes Traditional Sprints schedules should be announced soon, which should wrap up the reveal of any additional sprint car dates for 2026 in the state of Michigan. Look for perhaps one more major announcement on the sprint car side in the mitten for the upcoming season in the next couple of weeks.
• The Gilmore Car Museum in Hickory Corners, Michigan will host a lecture on short track open wheel racing on Saturday, February 7th featuring Barry Marlow from GLSS/GLTS/GLLS, Jared Owen from Anderson Speedway and the 500 Sprint Car Tour, engine builder Terry Dowker, and former stock car and NASCAR standout turned supermodified driver Johnny Benson Jr. Social hour will be from 1:15 until 2:00 P.M. with the lecture scheduled to take place from 2:00 to approximately 3:45 P.M. $20.00 admission gets you into the lecture and the museum for the day.