Clauson noted he’s been “pleasantly surprised” by the success that CMR has had at the Chili Bowl since the team’s inception in 2017.
Though they haven’t earned a Golden Driller yet, CMR cars have won three preliminary night features and have been toward the front of the field in several of the Saturday A Mains as well.
“Since we started CMR, I think we’ve locked in 10 or 12 cars into the A on Saturday night, so from the success side of it, it’s a huge surprise,” Clauson said. “Nothing in this building really changes. You’ve got teams here that just have a lot of experience. I feel like we’re starting to gain on that now, where our prelim nights seemed to go pretty well. And now we’re starting to sneak up on having enough experience to where our Saturday night results will start really reflecting how good we can be here.”
Clauson wouldn’t go so far as to call 2021 the year his team has its true “breakout performance” at the Chili Bowl, but he feels his tight-knit lineup has one of the best shots it has had to taste success.
“I think from Sunshine’s standpoint, his confidence level is as high as it has ever been, but all five of our guys are really excited,” Clauson said. “Specifically, in Tyler’s case, I think he feels like now he has elevated himself to an elite level as a race car driver, to where he’s not just a non-winged sprint car driver and not just a midget driver, but he stepped into the winged world at the highest level and has shown some success. And I think that’s the biggest thing when you come to Saturday night here, is being able to grow every time you’re here.
“At some point, drivers just start to understand that they do have the ability to pull off a Saturday night moment here and I feel like Tyler has done that as a driver and we’ve done that now as a team,” Clauson added. “I got to watch the growth we had with Bryan and it took him 10 years to win his first one. We were close on a lot of occasions, won a lot of prelim nights to get to that point, but in 2014, I think when people watched him on his prelim night, they knew he would be the guy that they had to go through in order to win that Golden Driller, and he was when that feature came on Saturday night.
“It’s hard to say what will or won’t happen, but I do believe we can put ourselves in the conversation.”
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