Grant Drives Toyota To Fifth Straight Chili Bowl Prelim Feature Win

Justin Grant took the lead at the midway point on lap 15, then held off Ricky Stenhouse on the final lap to win Friday’s Driven 2 Save Lives Qualifying Night feature event to advance to Saturday’s A Main feature at the 36th annual Lucas Oil Chili Bowl Nationals. It marked Grant’s fifth Friday preliminary night win in the last six years.

The victory gave Toyota a sweep of the week’s preliminary night feature events for the second year in a row. In addition, Toyota drivers earned six of the ten positions that advanced directly into Saturday night’s feature event where the manufacturer will be looking for its eighth consecutive Chili Bowl win.

Grant began the A Main from the fourth position, but immediately moved up to third on the opening lap. He then overtook Stenhouse for second on lap five behind leader Sam Johnson, with Stenhouse in third and Michael Faccinto in fourth.

Grant would close quickly as the leaders began to encounter heavy lapped traffic. As they diced through the field, Grant would make his move on lap 16, throwing a slider through turns one and two to take over the top spot.

Stenhouse moved up to second on lap 18, but Grant held a comfortable lead before the race saw a string of yellow flags that bunched up the field. Grant continued to lead after a pair of cautions, but the repeated yellows allowed Stenhouse to time a lap 24 restart perfectly, moving past Grant, only to see yet another caution flag revert the field back to the standings from the previous lap.

On the ensuing restart, Grant was able to maintain the top spot, but Stenhouse remained on his tail, but to no avail as Grant would take the checkered flag with Stenhouse finishing second, Zeb Wise was third and Toyota driver Bryant Wiedeman came home in fourth.

The win was the second of the week for Grant, who took top honors in Monday’s Vacuworx Invitational Race of Champions (VIROC). He finished second in last year’s Chili Bowl feature event.

Faccinto would join Grant and Wiedeman with a sixth-place finish, giving Toyota three top-10 finishers. In addition, Cory Eliason placed 17th, with Brenham Crouch in 19th and Tom Harris was 22nd to complete the six Toyota drivers who advanced to the A Main. 

This year’s Lucas Oil Chili Bowl Nationals features a record 395 entries – each fighting for one of the 24 openings in Saturday night’s “A Main” feature event. A total of 56 Toyota-powered drivers are expected to compete on Saturday.

Quotes:

Justin Grant, RMS Racing: “(On taking the lead) I knew we had a pretty good car around the top. Sam was really good up there as well. Once he got in traffic, we were able to get to him and slide him for the lead. I knew once we got to running the top, I was going to be alright up there. Our car rolls around the top pretty good right now. (On holding off Stenhouse for the win) I definitely saw Ricky down at the end. The bottom was there in three and four, but I didn’t feel good on the bottom, so I was trying to run up top in three and four, but I was able to chop him there at the end to hold him off.”

Toyota Saturday Race Line-up 

(R) = Rookie

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