POUGHKEEPSIE, NY (January 11, 2019) – Chris Dyson’s 2019 racing season begins in Oklahoma, as it has for the past five years, with the running of the Lucas Oil Chili Bowl Nationals, the annual indoor kick-off for the American short-track open-wheel racing season, and a classic race for midget-style racing cars.
Dyson, who will campaign his Sean Michael-prepared blue & white #20D Thetford / ProtectAll-branded CD Racing Beast / Stanton SR-11 in Tulsa as the kickoff to a wide-ranging racing schedule, joins a record-setting entry of more than 350 drivers competing in the six-day event at the Tulsa Expo Raceway, a one-fifth mile clay oval specially constructed inside Tulsa’s River Spirit Expo Center for the Chili Bowl each year since 1987.
“Once Christmas and New Year’s are over, every year I start getting excited about the Chili Bowl,” Dyson said. “It’s great racing and really fun. All the best midget drivers in the country are there, and there are a ton of other racers from many disciplines. The intensity of the competition and the spectacle of the event are matched only by a few other races in the world.”
In addition to the famed Chili Bowl, CD Racing fields entries for Dyson in USAC Sprint Car and Silver Crown races and a Mustang in the road racing Trans Am Championship. “Working with Sean Michael we made big strides in 2018 in our open-wheel program and I’m confident we will again this year. Sean is just so dedicated and so good; detail-oriented and meticulous in everything he does. Each time I get into a car he’s prepared, I know it will be a fast and safe race car. That gives any driver a lot of confidence.”
In 2018 Dyson made entries only in the Silver Crown dirt races. This year his team will step up to contest the entire Silver Crown series, both dirt and paved events. “We’ve purchased a pavement car and I’m personally going to run every Silver Crown race that doesn’t conflict with my Trans Am schedule,” Dyson said. “It’s our plan to continue entering all the Silver Crown events and we will also run selected USAC Sprint Car races whenever the schedule allows.” CD Racing won a USAC National Sprint Car race with Thomas Meseraull driving on the “Eastern Storm” stretch of that hotly-contested circuit.
Dyson noted that next week will in a way be a microcosm of his 2019 racing season. Not only will he be racing in Tulsa, but he’ll also be testing his Plaid Mustang Trans-Am car in Florida. “Monday I’ll be at the Chili Bowl for my preliminary heat and qualifying races,” Dyson said. “Then I fly to Miami where we’ll be testing the Trans-Am car Tuesday and Wednesday at Homestead before coming back to Tulsa for the feature races on Saturday evening. It’s going to be a busy week, but I think a good one. I am really excited for another action-packed year of racing in 2019.”