The Chili Bowl will be his first race in a midget.
In addition to his prowess in the Legend cars, he also made his debut in the Nut Up Pro Late Model Series at Madera Speedway. The other came in the California State Asphalt Legends Series.
One of the titles was the Legends car track championship at Arizona’s Havasu 95 Speedway. Those lofty statistics netted him two championships in his first year back. In 37 appearances, he scored 11 wins, 19 top three, and 29 top 10 finishes. He re-launched his career racing dwarf cars and it paid immediate dividends. However, he stepped away from racing when he was 12 years old and did not compete again until 2021. Garvy, who turned 21 in August, competed and won in both quarter midgets and bandoleros as a child. After making his midget debut at the Chili Bowl, Gasper will defend his CLS title and will begin racing 360 sprint cars next year. Most importantly, he won the season-long California Lightning Sprint Car Series championship in his first try and became the youngest champion in the 27-year history of the club. He won the 2021 CLS Rookie of the Year award and the annual Civil War Series title. That is when he turned to Lightning Sprints. In 2020, he won the Rookie of the Year award in the Modified Karts, but when the off-road series folded, Gasper had to find something new. The teen achieved off-road success at an early age by winning titles in the Junior 1 and 2 classes. Sixteen-year-old Gasper made a career shift in 2021 when he went from racing in the Lucas Oil Off-Road Series to the California Lightning Sprint Cars. Those stats netted him second place in the championship point standings, 18 points out of first. In addition, he never finished out of the top 10 in nine starts on the fifth-mile red clay oval. In 2021, he racked up one win and eight top-five finishes.
Super Vintage Modifieds at the Upper Peninsula Int’l Raceway in Escanaba. He then progressed to driving sprint cars in the VRA Series at Ventura and eventually ventured to the USAC/CRA and PAS Senior Sprint Car competitions at Perris Auto Speedway.
The veteran driver first crossed paths with Kruseman when he helped the latter with his sprint cars at Ventura Raceway. Jesse Denome, a past resident of San Diego who moved back to his native Escanaba, Mich., will be racing in his second Chili Bowl in January. Later in the program he used the same 305 to finish second in a 19-car 360 sprint car main event. A few weeks earlier, he finishing second in the 305 sprint car feature at Sandia. He will come into the Chili Bowl off a win at the 305 winged sprint car Turkey Bowl at the Vado Speedway Park on Nov. In addition, the affable driver also captured sprint car titles in 2017 and ’18 at Sandia Speedway. This year he won his third Lucas Oil POWRi New Mexico Motor Racing Association non-winged sprint car championship. Twenty-six-year-old Saiz, who will be making his first foray into midget racing at the Chili Bowl, comes in as a highly decorated sprint car driver from Albuquerque, N.M. Kruseman’s Chili Bowl lineup consists of Caleb Saiz, Jesse Denome, Dave Gasper, Evan Garvy and Travis Buckley. The annual event will take place on the same Tulsa Expo Center Raceway surface that Kruseman won the race on in 2000 and ’04. – Veteran driver and team owner Cory Kruseman is entering five cars in January’s 36th Lucas Oil Chili Bowl Nationals in Tulsa, Okla., on Jan.