Grant Drives Toyota To Fifth Straight Chili Bowl Prelim Feature Win

Starting from the outside of the front row, Justin Grant powered into the lead heading into the first turn and never relinquished the lead on the way to winning the Friday’s Driven 2 Save Lives Qualifying Night feature event to advance to Saturday’s A Main feature at the 35th annual Lucas Oil Chili Bowl Nationals.

The victory gave Toyota a sweep of the week’s preliminary night feature events. In addition, Toyota drivers earned eight of the 10 positions that advanced directly into Saturday night’s feature event where the manufacturer will be looking for its seventh consecutive Chili Bowl win.

Grant, in his first race with the RMS Racing team, was dominant throughout the 30-lap event, going straight to the lead running the high side into turn one on the opening lap. From there on out, only yellow flags were able to slow him through much of the race as he stretched his lead out to more than three seconds on multiple occasions. He would run into heavy lapped traffic late in the race, but was able to maneuver anywhere on the track in dicing between them, despite a rear tire that was losing air pressure in the late going.

“RMS brought a bunch of great race cars and I think every one of us finished in the top-five in the A Mains this week,” said Grant. “I’m proud to be out there representing NOS Energy Drinks, Delco Wheels and everyone on our car. The Toyota motor screams in that thing. They absolutely rip. We were pretty fast out of the gate and we kept fine-tuning all week. We were really good there in the feature. We were pretty comfortable, but when we got into lapped traffic, it got pretty thick.”

Tanner Thorson turned in some of the most impressive drives of the day in finishing fourth, despite flipping his car early in the opening heat race. The Dave Mac Motorsports driver started the C Main from the fifth spot and climbed up to third to advance to the B, where he went from 15th to second to advance to the A Main. He then proceeded to charge from the 20th position all the way up to second to earn a spot in tomorrow’s B Main.

Also earning top-10 finishes were Jesse Love, who celebrated his 16th birthday on Thursday, and Aaron Reutzel, who earned seventh and eighth, respectively.

This year’s Lucas Oil Chili Bowl Nationals features 309 entries – each fighting for one of the 24 openings in Saturday night’s “A Main” feature event.

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Toyota Friday Results	Finished
Justin Grant	A Main – 1^st
Tanner Thorson	A Main – 4^th
Jesse Love	A Main – 7^th
Aaron Reutzel	A Main – 8^th
Ace McCarthy	A Main – 13^th
Tucker Klaasmeyer	A Main – 15^th
Cody Jessop	A Main – 16^th
Luke Icke	A Main – 23^rd
Jesse Colwell	A Main – 24^th
Brayton Lynch	C Main – 5^th

Toyota Saturday Race Line-up

Car #	Driver	Hometown	Qualified
71K	Cannon McIntosh	Bixby, Okla.	A Main
01	Kyle Larson	Elk Grove, CA	A Main
97	Rico Abreu	St. Helena, Calif.	A Main
84X	Christopher Bell	Norman, OK	A Main
2J	Justin Grant	Ione, CA	A Main
7X	Thomas Meseraull	San Jose, CA	A Main
25X	Alex Bright	Collegeville, PA	A Main
67	Buddy Kofoid	Penngrove, CA	A Main
52	Blake Hahn	Sapulpa, OK	B Main
5D	Zach Daum	Pocohontas, IL	B Main
1R	Brad Sweet	Grass Valley, CA	B Main
89	Chris Windom	Canton, IL	B Main
1S	Spencer Bayston	Lebanon, IN	B Main
08	Tanner Thorson	Minden, NV	B Main
1D	David Gravel	Watertown, CT	B Main
49J	Joe B. Miller	Millersville, MO	B Main
35	Jacob Denny	Columbus, OH	B Main
97K	Jesse Love	Redwood City, CA	B Main
87	Aaron Reutzel	Kannapolis, IL	B Main
32T	Trey Marcham	Newcastle, OK	C Main
9P	Daison Pursley	Locust Grove, OK	C Main
21T	Carson Macedo	Lemoore, CA	C Main
71	Kaylee Bryson	Muskogee, OK	C Main
32	Gary Taylor	Snohomish, WA	C Main
71X	Brian Carber	Pipersville, PA	C Main
08K	Michael Faccinto	Hanford, CA	C Main
28	Ace McCarthy	Tahlequah, OK	C Main
8J	Jonathan Beason	Broken Arrow, OK	C Main
15A	Emerson Axsom	Franklin, IN	C Main
27	Tucker Klaasmeyer	Paola, KS	D Main
20H	Noah Harris	Broken Arrow, OK	D Main
91T	Tyler Thomas	Collinsville, OK	D Main
4CM	Cody Jessup	Madera, CA	D Main
98K	Tanner Carrick	Lincoln, CA	D Main
4D	Robert Dalby	Anaheim, CA	E Main
56i	Luke Icke	Littleton, CO	E Main
14	Jesse Colwell	Red Bluff, CA	E Main
67K	Holley Hollan	Tulsa, OK	F Main
26R	Tristin Thomas	Burlington, WA	F Main
79S	Landon Simon	Indianapolis, IN	F Main
91A	Chris Andrews	Sandusky, OH	F Main
17	Tanner Berryhill	Bixby, OK	F Main
26	Cory Eliason	Visalia, CA	F Main
25K	Taylor Reimer	Bixby, OK	G Main
10	Santino Ferrucci	Woodbury, CT	G Main
79	Ryan Hall	Midlothian, TX	H Main
91S	Kyle Shipley	Kingman, KS	J Main
81X	Dillon Welch	Carmel, IN	J Main
5W	Ben Worth	Coalinga, CA	J Main
79M	Keith Martin	Burleson, TX	J Main
1K	Brayton Lynch	Springfield, IL	K Main
25C	Courtney Crone	Penngrove, CA	K Main
50K	Kaeden Cornell	Willard, MO	L Main
4F	Chad Frewaldt	Kansas City, MO	L Main