TULSA, Okla. — On Monday night, Taylor Reimer was busy putting in a hard charge during her Chili Bowl Nationals preliminary feature when suddenly, she made contact with the car chasing her with four laps to go.
The No. 25k Keith Kunz Motorsports midget spun, and while Reimer kept the wheels turning and performed a 360-degree turn on track, she was sent to the back. Prior to the incident, she had fought her way from 14th up to eighth.
As a result of the spin, she finished 21st.
“At that point, there was only four laps left, so unfortunately we weren’t able to make up any ground, especially with the track conditions,” Reimer said. “We’re gonna be buried pretty deep on Saturday — I think we’re all the way back in an E main.”
She’s aware of what a climb through Saturday’s alphabet soup at the SageNet Center can mean, although she hasn’t necessarily done it before.
During Reimer’s first Chili Bowl appearance in 2021, the Oklahoma native finished seventh in a G main on Saturday. The next year, she was 11th in the D main and in 2023, she finished 15th in a B main.
“My first year here when I was running, I was buried so deep and I didn’t really have the ability to pass cars,” Reimer recalled. “But now after having a couple years under my belt, I know how to pass cars and work my way through traffic a little bit better than I did.”
Other than her personal development behind the wheel, Reimer noted her journey through the soup will depend on track conditions.
“Usually for the low mains, they don’t do any track prep, so we might get lucky and have a couple lanes, but sometimes it’s just one lane around the bottom,” Reimer said. “It’s gonna be the luck of the draw there, and I just hope the track conditions are good enough to where we are able to make up some ground.”
The 24-year-old is still knocking on the door of her first A main appearance at the Chili Bowl, but with her dose of bad luck early in the week, Reimer has tempered her expectations.
“My goal every year is to be able to make the A main, but you know, it makes it a lot tougher when you’re coming so deep back,” Reimer said. “Hopefully we’ll have some luck on our side there.”
If there’s one factor that is on Reimer’s side this week, it’s the fact that her bed is only 15 minutes away from the SageNet Center where the Chili Bowl is held. The Toyota-powered driver is a Tulsa native.
“It’s super nice to be able to go home every single night and just sleep in my own bed, especially in such a week that’s so important and such a stressful event,” Reimer said.
Though her focus remains on making the 24-car A main at the Chili Bowl this week, once she departs from the SageNet Center, the next item on her to-do list will be late model testing.
Reimer will pilot a late model for Lee Faulk Racing with plans to run 25 races at tracks in North Carolina.
“We’re gonna test a little bit in February, and then I’ll have some races starting in March throughout the rest of the season,” Reimer explained. “I’m also gonna go through and pick out some dirt races that I can do, because I still love racing the midgets and I want to continue to do that.”
She will also compete in two ARCA Menards Series dirt races this season.