Spencer Bayston placed second to advance to Saturday’s A Main feature event, while Jade Avedisian placed third in the highest finish ever by a woman in a preliminary feature to lead Toyota in Tuesday night’s 30-lap Warren CAT Qualifying Night feature at the 37th annual Lucas Oil Chili Bowl Nationals.
Today’s finish marks the third time that Bayston has advanced directly to Saturday’s A Main after previously placing second in 2018 and third in 2015. He earned a career-best feature showing of third in 2018.
Tonight’s third place showing marks the latest run to history for the 16-year-old Avedisian. She became the first driver to win multiple races in the Xtreme Outlaw Midget Series, as well as the first woman to win multiple national midget features during the 2022 season. Her first win came at age 15.
In the early going, it looked like Buddy Kofoid would be celebrating his second consecutive Tuesday preliminary win. The two-time USAC National Midget champion led laps two through seven and had a comfortable lead before his night came to a sudden end when two cars got together in front of him, leaving him with no place to go. He would hit the wall, ending his run. He would eventually be scored 20th.
Overall, nine of the 13 Toyota-powered drivers advanced to Tuesday’s A Main with five finishing in the top seven. In addition to Bayston and Avedisian, Jonathan Beason placed fifth, Kaylee Bryson was sixth and Chase Crum brought it home in seventh.
After the first two preliminary night qualifiers, two Toyota-powered drivers have advanced directly to Saturday’s A Main.
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 three nights.
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Quotes:
Jade Avedisian, Toyota: “This means the world to me. I can’t thank Chad Boat and everyone at CBI enough, as well as Toyota Racing. I wish I was one spot better, so I didn’t have to work my way out of the B. We’ll see what we have on Saturday and try to make it to the feature. I had one of the best cars on the track but made a few mistakes. I’m just glad to be on the podium. This is just insane and I’m very grateful to be here.”
Spencer Bayston, RMS Racing Toyota: “Early in the race, the leaders were dropping like flies, and we were able to capitalize on that. I felt really good in our car. I got to Hank on a long run and felt I was a bit faster. I thought if I could get in front of him on a restart I could out-run him, but he did a great job. I just couldn’t quite close it. I had to get back to what was working. Congrats to Hank.”
| Toyota Tuesday Results | Finished |
| Spencer Bayston | A Main – 2nd |
| Jade Avedisian | A Main – 3rd |
| Jonathan Beason | A Main – 5th |
| Kaylee Bryson | A Main – 6th |
| Chance Crum | A Main – 7th |
| A.J. Bender | A Main – 15th |
| Mariah Ede | A Main – 17th |
| Buddy Kofoid | A Main – 20th |
| Michael Pickens | A Main – 21st |
| Brayton Lynch | B Main – 7th |
| Jared Jennings | C Main – 8th |
| Anthony Pope | C Main – 10th |
| Nick Baran | C Main – 13th |
TRD PR
