Jason McDougal will not play in Saturday’s Chili Bowl Midget Nationals game.
The Oklahoma native, known for his signature charge through the alphabet soup on race day, especially his run from I-Main to D-Main in 2021, was forced to sit on the sidelines after an engine issue cost him his chance on Friday qualifying night.
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In his first year with team owner Dan Binks (Sports Car Racing Legends team captain), McDougall was finishing second in the first C-Feature race when white smoke erupted from his 4P car with two laps to go. His last move of the night, pulling into the infield, proved to be the final moment of his run at the Tulsa Expo Center this year. After a series of events, Binks confirmed that McDougall will not take part in Saturday’s race due to serious engine issues.
“It was my new engine and it was vibrating a lot so he didn’t like it that much,” Binks told Motorsport.com. “We had a good run in C and the oil filter gasket blew and hot oil got all over him. It was 9500 rpm and 7 pounds of oil pressure, so that’s done. We’ll regroup next year and then Darin (Naida) does a morning run.”
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Binks added that if the engine had better oil pressure that high in the rev range, someone would consider making a change and give Saturday a chance.
Development has been a common theme for the Binks since his debut in the Chili Bowl in 2022. His methodology makes him a mad scientist, always pushing the envelope. This year is no different and he admits the engine bears no resemblance to the one used last year.
“It’s completely different,” Binks said. “It’s a clean sheet; completely different. Completely different size, bore, stroke, compression ratio, rev range. It’s completely different. Everything I learned before, I tried to make sure it was strong enough to do everything better, and I think it did.
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“I mean, there’s no (push) rod on the side of this thing. It blew up the damn oil filter. I didn’t plan on doing that, but I could do a little better on that. We’ve got some work to do on the vibration. It shakes a lot. He doesn’t like that. He said the steering wheel feels like it’s three inches on this thing, so we just need to do some work on it.”
However, the focus now is on ensuring a similar problem doesn’t happen to McDougal’s teammate Darin Nida, who is Binks’ only competitor who will compete on Saturday.
“We learned a lot and changed a lot,” Binks said. “I didn’t expect the oil filter to explode, but this thing is oil cooled, so a lot of weird things can happen. What we’re learning now is to pay more careful attention to this problem and learn as much as possible next time.”
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