Kyle Larson and Christopher Bell took charge of the opening night of the 2025 Chili Bowl Nationals presented by NOS Energy Drink inside the SageNet Center on Monday evening.
Larson won the first of five preliminary features to lock himself into Saturday’s dirt midget car championship feature. Earlier in the evening, Bell raced to a dominant victory in the annual Chili Bowl Race of Champions.
WATCH: 2025 Chili Bowl on FloRacing
The victory for Larson did not come easy. He started fourth in the 25-lap preliminary event and faded as far back as seventh in the opening laps.
Utilizing patience and timely cautions, Larson worked his way into contention late in the race.
With eight laps remaining, Larson moved to third. A caution with five laps to go allowed Larson to close the gap to leaders Shane Golobic and Cannon McIntosh.
Larson dispatched McIntosh shortly thereafter and looked to be setting up Golobic for a last-lap pass, but a caution for a flipped car in Turn 3 stopped the action and set up a green-white-checkered restart.
🏁 @KyleLarsonRacin wins the first prelim Feature of the 2025 #ChiliBowl presented by @NosEnergyDrink!@ShaneGolobic also locks in to the Saturday @cbnationals finale! pic.twitter.com/fFfyKsXGBf
– FloRacing (@FloRacing) January 14, 2025
The 2021 NASCAR Cup Series champion made the winning move in Turns 3-4 coming to the white flag, throwing a perfect slide job that allowed him to take the lead from Golobic and score his eighth career Chili Bowl preliminary feature victory.
“The yellows definitely helped,” Larson told FloRacing. “I think it just kind of brings the pace down. People get kind of moving around, track is a litter dirtier, you get out of your rhythm. So yeah, it helped me.
“We just found a way, which was nice, but we’ve still got to get a lot better for Saturday.”
While Larson had to fight his way to Victory Lane Monday night, Bell had no such difficulty.
Starting from the pole in the Chili Bowl Race of Champions, Bell raced to an unchallenged victory in his return to Chili Bowl competition after a two-year absence.
🏁 @CBellRacing wins the Race of Champions at the 2025 #ChiliBowl presented by @NosEnergyDrink!@cbnationals pic.twitter.com/nisBBMbHRQ
– FloRacing (@FloRacing) January 14, 2025
It was his third victory in the Race of Champions, an invite-only event featuring a variety of drivers from across the dirt racing spectrum.
“I freaking love this place, man. It is the greatest,” Bell said. “I’m just glad I get to be here with all you great race fans. This is just so much fun, so much fun to come back and run these dirt cars.”
The 39th running of the Chili Bowl Nationals presented by NOS Energy Drink continues Tuesday night. Action kicks off at 5 p.m. ET with complete coverage available live on FloRacing.