Christopher Bell joined Rico Abreu and Kevin Swindell as drivers who have won consecutive Chili Bowls when he rolled into the River Spirit Expo Center in Tulsa, OK Saturday night. Abreu won in 2015/2016; Swindell was victorious for four years from 2010-2013. Bell’s late-race pass on Kyle Larson came after his NASCAR colleague experienced mechanical problems, making it a bitter sweet win for the Oklahoma native.

"It's special to win the Chili Bowl,” Bell said. “With over 300 something cars, it's always going to be special, but I'm disappointed. I feel like Kyle got robbed, I got robbed, and the fans got robbed. I wanted to race it out, and I know the fans wanted us to race it out too so I'm disappointed we didn't get to do that, but I'd rather be lucky than good any day."

Starting on the front row, Larson and Bell were the class of the field from the drop of the green flag. Larson got the jump for the first 10 laps until a cushion began to develop. On a lap-11 restart, Bell drove by on the high side of turn four.

Seven laps later when the field was slowed once more to caution, the two ran away from the field again until Larson wrangled the lead on lap 26.

Larson stretched his advantage and had the race in hand until his engine seized on lap 41 and belched a ton of smoke. Larson pulled into the infield, leaving Bell without much of a challenge.

Starting third, teammate Abreu still had a chance to deny Bell the consecutive win if he could only maneuver through traffic better. He could not and Bell won by an impressive margin of 3.162 seconds.

Spencer Bayston rounded out the podium, giving owner Keith Kunz a clean sweep of the top three as well as his fourth consecutive victory. Abreu’s back-to-back wins in 2015/2016 came with Kunz.

"Once in a lifetime,” Kunz said. “This week was once in a lifetime."

Larson was credited with 19th.

Tanner Thorson earned to stick-to-it reward. He began the day in the C-Main, transferred to the B, and started 17th in the A before climbing to fourth at the checkers. He brought Ryan Bernal with him after that driver took the final transfer spot of sixth from his B-Main.

Top-10 Finishers
1. Christopher Bell
2. Rico Abreu
3. Spencer Bayston
4. Tanner Thorson
5. Ryan Bernal
6. Brad Sweet
7. Justin Grant
8. Chase Johnson
9. Kevin Thomas Jr.
10. Chad Boat