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Tyler Courtney Rises to Third in Friday Chili Bowl Prelim

TULSA, OK– Tyler Courtney knew he was a long shot to get locked into Saturday night’s A-Main at the Chili Bowl Nationals, but finishing third in his Friday preliminary night feature was as close has he was going to get.

The Indianapolis native came home behind winner Logan Seavey and runner-up Gavin Miller in the A-Main, locking himself into a B-Main on Saturday night. ‘Sunshine’ will need a top-seven finish in that race to lock himself into the 40-lap main event and fight for the coveted Golden Driller.

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“That was my goal, kind of, at least like my first goal in the first part of that race, get yourself in a B-Main spot and then, you know, just keep working your way up,” Courtney said. “And, yeah, we got 5th there and I’m like, ‘OK, we got a chance (of) maybe locking in here if things kind of go our way,’ and they did for a couple of laps.

“And then, like Logan said, it’s just technical tonight, so you go make one mistake and then kind of lose the ground that you made up. But yeah, to start 12th and for how I’ve been feeling in the race car, to get comfortable finally in the feature there and get ourselves and I think on the front row of a B Main for tomorrow, it’s a great feeling and it’s just exciting.

“I was on my way home come feature time last year, so to have a good chance of being in the show this year is a great feeling.”

Courtney started 12th in the 30-lap feature and moved up to eighth at the start of the race before gradually picking up positions through the race. By Lap 9, Courtney was in seventh which became sixth on Lap 15, fifth on Lap 18, fourth on Lap 20 and third on Lap 28.

Daryn Pittman gave Courtney all he could handle over the final few laps of the race, but Courtney prevailed over the Oklahoma native by only .069 seconds for third. Courtney’s performance even surprised himself, the 2019 USAC National Midget Champion having amassed enough passing points to skip out on having to run a B-Main on Friday night.

“All in all, I don’t race midgets full time anymore and out west we were awful,” Courtney said of the late-2024 west coast swing with USAC. “I wasn’t comfortable any of the nights and really wasn’t that comfortable really tonight until the feature. So thanks to Paul [Silva] for making all the right changes to get me comfortable and felt like I was finally a midget guy again to put ourselves in a great spot to make another Chili Bowl Saturday night A main.”

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For the last several years, Courtney has competed full-time in winged sprint cars, winning two All Star Circuit of Champions titles and finishing second in High Limit Sprint Car Series points in 2024.

He’ll start on the outside of the front row of the first B-Main in Saturday night’s races.

Christopher DeHarde has covered IndyCar racing and the Road to Indy for various outlets since 2014. In addition to open wheel racing, DeHarde has also covered IMSA and various short track racing events around Indiana. Originally from New Orleans, DeHarde moved to the Indianapolis area in 2017 to further pursue a career as a motorsports writer.