Instead of Buying a Car, Alex Midkiff Built His Own For the Chili Bowl

TULSA, OK — On Christmas Day, most people are sitting next to their Christmas tree drinking hot chocolate and unwrapping another present from Mom and Dad.

Alex Midkiff was in the workshop standing up the sides of what would become the frame of his No. 05 midget for the 2025 Chili Bowl Nationals.

“I had just pulled the sides out of the jig and getting it stood up to basically build the complete car,” Midkiff told Frontstretch. “I think Christmas the year before, I spent building a new body for a micro (sprint) to bring to the [Tulsa] Shootout. So it’s not unusual. Christmas, it’s obviously fun to be around family, but at the end of the day it’s just another day for me.”

The Belleville, Ill., native is a Chili Bowl rookie who finished fifth in 2024 Midget Auto Racing Association (MARA) points. After racing the MARA series throughout Illinois and the Badger MARA series in Wisconsin, Midkiff realized that the frame on his midget would not pass technical inspection for the Chili Bowl.

So he decided to build his own Chili Bowl contender.

“I had built six micro (sprints) and a junior sprint before and I said, ‘Well, why not build a midget?’ Because definitely we could have bought one for sure, but then it would’ve cost a lot more. And then the money I saved by building my own, I could put back into say, another motor for outdoor season.”

A full time machinist, Midkiff started building the car on December 4th and spent the next month piecing the car together in the machine shop after his normal day’s work was over.

Midkiff had the week off between Christmas Day and New Years Day, so he was able to put in a lot of time finishing the frame and building the car. However, the following week was where things got challenging, as he had to work his normal hours at the machine shop before spending more time on the car. There were several nights where Midkiff worked until 3:00 in the morning, stopping when he couldn’t work any more.

That grind put him in position to get the car complete. But there was one more major hurdle for Midkiff to clear before Sunday’s practice sessions at the Tulsa Expo Center. His car did not have an engine until Thursday and load-in day was Friday January 10th.

“Luckily the guy that did all the machine work helped us out and put the bottom end together,” Midkiff said. “But we still had to put the head on it, put the cams, rockers, time it, put the timing chain cover on it, everything, put it in the car, hook everything up.”

The engine for Midkiff’s car is out of a 2002 Honda CRV. With minimal modifications allowed under the Badger series rules rules he normally competes under, it helps keep costs down and Midkiff estimates that he has spent under $10,000 on the engine while many other teams spend much, much more on their power plants.

“We probably have less (money) in this whole car than what some of these guys have in their motor,” Midkiff said. “But it should be fairly competitive. I’d like to make the Prelim A. I think that would put us at at least in the E Main on Saturday.”

Finishing last in a preliminary night feature race would guarantee Midkiff a starting spot in an E-Main at worst, but doing it all in a car he built would make it all the more rewarding.

“I’ve pulled it off the jig, like I just built a midget, so not many people can say that,” Midkiff said. “There’s more previous Driller winners on the entry list than people that are driving the car that they built. So it’s pretty cool being a very few select people in the country that actually built their own car and drove it and raced it.”

In that respect, Midkiff is a throwback to the old days when a driver could work on their cars and engines before work became specialized. Midkiff will see how well he and his car can do in his preliminary night on Friday.