Some examples of why the ChiliBowl has huge counts..... Many midget racers have a backup car. All year long it sits in the shop or in the top of the trailer as long as the primary car isn't tore up. At the Chili Bowl all those backup cars typically end up getting used as rent a rides for somebody else.

Brad Loyet has nearly a dozen midgets in his operation, but all through the year he is a one car team...just him driving the orange #05 car....for the Chili Bowl his dad hires 4 or 5 high profile drivers. He wants that driller trophy bad so he enters 5 or 6 cars with the likes of Stanbrough, Shuman, Pickens, Gary Taylor, Gardner, etc in the seats to try to grab a driller.

Cory Kruesman runs a midget at home regularly, and he leases rides in multiple focus midgets and possibly a full midget out there. Come Chilibowl time he has 4-5 extra cars with rental drivers in them.

There are about 20-30 "Chilibowl specials" in shops around the country, Including the 2 Swindell cars. These are typically cars owned by Sprintcar drivers that just get used once a year and were built just for running the Chilibowl. Many have lighter frames and other components that wouldn't be stout enough to stand up to a crash on a larger track. Darryn Pittman has a midget that he built just to run the chilibowl with but he has also taken it to the DuQuion indoor race the last couple of years.

Many of the cars at the bowl are regional cars that wouldn't be near competitive enough to go run with the level of competition at midget week. There are quite a few cars from Texas that have old Pontiac motors and such. They have a small chance at being competitive on a track the size of the bowl but for sure aren't competitive enough for a guy to come all the way from TX to IN to race.

And finally, several of the cars you see at Tulsa aren't even complete cars the rest of the year. Quite a few guys own a midget roller but not a motor, and they lease an engine from a bigger team or from an engine builder for the week. Fontana does quite a few motor leases every January, and I think Esslinger does as well.

And again, if it wasn't such an "EVENT" you wouldn't see all those people going thru that much trouble and expense to race. Yes Indy midget week is a great event, but it's right smack in the middle of the season when 200 of the bowl competitors are involved in racing with whatever series they regularly run. It's hard to justify driving all the way to Indy from Colorado, California or Pennsylvania but really hard to justify skipping races close to home to do it.