NASCAR stars shine bright at Chili Bowl
Stewart, Kahne, others soak in atmosphere

By Jenni Carlson

Published: January 13, 2007

TULSA — Tony Stewart lounged on a leather couch perched on the roof of his racing trailer.

No other racer at the Chili Bowl Midget Nationals this week had such a throne. Most of the other 200-plus pits inside the Tulsa Expo Center were lucky to have plastic patio furniture or collapsible nylon chairs, making the NASCAR star's set-up the envy of every racer.

Despite Stewart's roost, it was impossible to think him high and mighty.

Not when he was in Oklahoma for a sprint car race.

The guy won more than $7 million last year racing on the NASCAR circuit. Still, he was here throughout the week for the Chili Bowl, a five-day racing extravaganza on an indoor, quarter-mile dirt track. It will culminate tonight with the finals. This is a granddaddy among dirt-track, midget-car races, but it is quite a step down for someone who races at Daytona and Indy.

It would be like Albert Pujols signing up for rec softball or Peyton Manning playing in a flag football league.

Thing is, Stewart has come willingly for years.

And he isn't the only one. Fellow NASCAR regulars Kasey Kahne, Jason Leffler and J.J. Yeley are here, too. Ditto for former Indy Racing League driver Billy Boat and World of Outlaws legend Sammy Swindell.

"You don't have a racing atmosphere like this in any other kind of racing division,” Yeley said. "It's the best racing you'll see all year long and probably the stiffest competition that you'll find anywhere, especially when you have 280 cars and champions from every division of any kind of car that races.”

He smiled.

"It's just that challenge where you want to go out there and be the big guy on Saturday.”

Racing is not the sport of choice in these parts — football is the undisputed king — but it's easy to see why its national popularity has skyrocketed in recent years.

Its stars are accessible.

While the NFL, the NBA and Major League Baseball still stand as sports' holy trinity, those leagues are battling public-relations battles almost every time you turn on SportsCenter. Players are involved in assorted businesses. There are arrests and shootings and fights and shenanigans of every kind.

Not that racing is spotless, but most of the madness is confined to the track. It makes for great theater.

"Race fans are real passionate about what they do,” said defending Chili Bowl champion Tim McCreadie as he stood in the pits. "Part of that is because they can get in here, they can talk to us, they can hang out with us.”

McCreadie shared pit space this week with Stewart, who is also a sprint car owner and heads Tony Stewart Racing. Their area was one of the few with a rope around it, yet fans were still within an arm's length of the cars and within 10 feet of the trailer.

Yeley also had a rope around his pit, but when he crashed during a heat race Thursday night, fans were close enough to hand his crew a wrench as it worked to fix the front end of the car.

"You buy a pit pass ... you can come down, touch them, talk to the guys,” driver Michelle Decker said.

Decker races regularly at State Fair Speedway in Oklahoma City, but this week, she was alongside Stewart and Yeley and Kahne.

Heady stuff.

"This is an event where us weekend racers act like this is what we do all week,” said Decker, who takes off work every year for Chili Bowl week. "This is probably one of the greatest racing spectacles. I know you've got Daytona. I know you've got Indy.

"But when you've got some of the great names that come to Tulsa ... it's awesome.”

The big names don't always make the big race, either. Last year, Stewart crashed in his preliminary race and failed to make the finals. He stayed around on Saturday, though, signing autographs pretty much all day.

He does no autographs until Saturday. No interviews, either.

Unfortunate, sure. But it's hardly reason to skewer the star.

"If I could only compete in one dirt-track event a year,” Stewart said on his website, "the Chili Bowl would definitely be it.”

He could be testing at Daytona or lounging in Barbados or skiing in Aspen this week.

Instead, he's racing in Tulsa.