Big Mac feasts! -- McIntosh Wins Opening Night of 2023 Chili Bowl
TULSA, Okla. (January 9, 2023) – Cannon McIntosh led all 30 laps, overcoming a deflating right rear tire in the final laps, to win Cummins Qualifying Night and advance to Saturday’s A Main feature at the 37th annual Lucas Oil Chili Bowl Nationals.
The victory is the third Chili Bowl preliminary night triumph in the last four years for the 20-year-old Bixby, Oklahoma native. Toyota-powered drivers have now won 11 consecutive Chili Bowl qualifying night feature events.
Starting from the pole, McIntosh went straight to the front and opened up a sizable lead racing through lapped traffic as the race passed the midway point before his tire started going down with seven laps to go. A late-race yellow would bunch the field with Chris Windom on his tail with three laps remaining. As McIntosh went low to protect the line, Windom came under fire from Shane Golobic for the second spot to advance directly into Saturday’s A Main.
As the second-and-third-place cars battled behind him, it gave McIntosh the opportunity to pull away for the win. Golobic would finish second and Windom third. With Windom’s finish and Trey Marcham placing fourth, Toyota drivers captured three of the top four spots.
Overall, Toyota drivers earned six top-10 finishing positions as Gavan Boschele placed sixth, Ryan Timms was seventh, Kyle Spence eighth and Jacob Denny finished ninth.
In addition, Toyota-powered driver Spencer Bayston was victorious in Monday’s O’Reilly Race of Champions event. Bayston held off a late charge from McIntosh, with Rico Abreu finishing third.
This year’s Lucas Oil Chili Bowl Nationals features 370 entries - each fighting for one of the 24 openings in Saturday night’s “A Main” feature event. Qualifying continues for each of the next four nights with 13 more Toyota-powered drivers expected to attempt to qualify on Tuesday.
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Quotes:
Cannon McIntosh, Dave Mac Dalby Motorsports Toyota: “We had a good car on the bottom early and was hoping we’d be able to stay down there. But we needed to go up top as we started to run in traffic. Then with six or seven to go, the right rear started to go down. I didn’t know if that late yellow was going to be a good or bad thing. I had zero confidence going into the caution. Thankfully there was only three to go. I just moved down to the bottom to try to protect the lead. I don’t think the tire affected us that much, though. There are so many parts to this team that were able to get this done tonight. It’s nice to win this one for Gear Wrench in their first race on board with us and for Mobil 1 and Toyota. It’s pretty cool to win a third preliminary night in the last four years. It’s pretty special this year to win this one with the family team. Biggest thing was just to get locked in for Saturday.”