Dave Blaney, a second-generation racer from Hartford, Ohio, claimed the 1995 World of Outlaws championship, topped the 1997 Knoxville Nationals, won a pair of Kings Royal features at Eldora Speedway and made 473 NASCAR Cup Series starts.
But often lost among his extensive list of accomplishments is Blaney’s victory in the 1993 edition of the annual indoor midget race in Tulsa, Okla., now known as the Chili Bowl Midget Nationals.
“Back then it was just another race, but it’s turned into a big deal where all the best guys go,” Blaney noted. “Honestly, the best sprint car guys and the best midget guys were there when I was there. There just wasn’t the crowd they get now. When it happened, I wouldn’t have ranked that win even close to a Kings Royal win, a Knoxville win or something like that.
“Did I think it would ever be the event that it is today? I never thought about that, but nowadays, I’ve had people say, ‘You won the Chili Bowl? That’s crazy!’ It sure wasn’t a big deal then, but OK.”
Blaney recently sat down with SPEED SPORT to reflect on his 1993 Chili Bowl triumph and prefaced his remarks by saying, “I’ve been in a lot of races and a lot of wrecks, so here’s what you’re going to hear a lot about my past: ‘I don’t remember.’”
Blaney does remember that he had never raced a midget prior to receiving a phone call from Tracy Potter, son of noted USAC car owner Ralph Potter, about running the seventh edition of the annual indoor dirt-track event organized by promoters Emmett Hahn and Lanny Edwards.
Blaney proved to be a quick learner.
Reminded that he passed a spinning Tony Stewart on the final lap to win the 25-lap Thursday night prelim feature, the now 61-year-old Blaney started laughing.
“I took some credit for that,” he admitted. “I don’t remember exactly how it happened, but I kept sticking my right-front wheel right by his left elbow. I mean right on it. I was making him nervous, and we got fortunate on that one.
“With Tracy Potter and that team, he knew what to do. He even helped me with how to drive it,” Blaney recalled. “I remember him telling me, ‘You’re driving too straight.’ Sprint car guys are always trying to drive straight and sometimes you just can’t do that.
“I had a really good car. I didn’t even have to know what to do the car; I just had to get it around the race track.”
And two nights later, Blaney did just that en route to victory in the 50-lap Saturday finale.
He took the lead from Ken Schrader on lap four and held the point until lap 38 when he slid high exiting turn four, allowing Brent Kaeding room to pass on the inside. However, Stewart spun at the same time, bringing out the yellow flag and negating the lead change.
“I don’t remember all that,” Blaney said. “I do remember it was a bottom race track. It was just patience. When you’re leading, you get anxious and scared that somebody is going to run around you. I’m sure I just wasn’t patient enough and it sounds like it almost bit me.”
Blaney hugged the bottom for the remainder of the race en route to the $5,000 first-place prize. Ron Shuman, Kaeding, Kevin Doty and Dean Erfurth completed the top-five finishers.
Does Blaney still have his Chili Bowl trophy?
“I might have my Knoxville Nationals trophy and I might have one of my Kings Royal trophies. That’s it,” Blaney admitted. “I was not much on keeping all of that stuff. I don’t know why. Most guys do, but I never did.
“Now, I get to my age and I think, ‘Man, I would have liked to have kept 10 really good ones,’ but I didn’t even do that. It seems silly, but I just gave them all away.”
1993 was also the first year Blaney teamed with noted sprint car crew chief Kenny Woodruff, who fielded Casey Luna’s WoO team from his shop in the Tulsa area.
“I would go a week early or stay a week after and help Woodruff work on our sprint car stuff for the next year,” Blaney remembered about his Chili Bowl trips. “He was right there, within 30 minutes from the race track in Tulsa. That was probably the main reason I agreed to go. I liked to go to his place anyway and work all day and race at night.”
Blaney has not been back to the Chili Bowl since making his fifth and final feature start in 1998.
“I was there for the week before the Chili Bowl, whatever they call that race. My son, Ryan, went racing out there one year in a mini sprint,” Blaney recalled. “He’d never even run on dirt before and I’m not sure why, but some guy wanted him to come out. So we did that one time.”
This story appeared in the Jan 3, 2024 edition of the SPEED SPORT Insider.
