The Chili Bowl Nationals in Tulsa, Oklahoma, is a race that is always an exciting one. With Christopher Bell and Kyle Larson’s reigns as consecutive champs to now Logan Seavey as the reigning champ, fans of the race can’t wait to see if there is a new champion on the way. There’s one specific racer who has had his eye on the Golden Driller since he was a kid.

Daison Pursley is that racer. For the last two years, he has been a podium finisher, and now he has his sights set on winning the whole thing. He came so close to winning the 2025 race, but Kyle Larson painfully took that away from him in the final moments. On FloRacing’s segment #RoadToTheChiliBowl, he revealed his prayers for his rival’s downfall. Heading into the Chili Bowl, he has a steady mindset, but not the same one as the last two years.

The downfall Pursley prays for

“That place, you can’t ever have the same mindset going into that place. It’s a hard one for sure, and it’s one that’s been haunting me for I feel like a long time now, for sure, so yeah. I’m just super excited to get back into the expo,” said Pursley.

Pursley has come up on the podium for the race for the last two years. To him, the only next option is to win it. Unfortunately for Larson, this win might come at the expense of his performance.

“Hopefully, Larson doesn’t ride up the wall or hit a car and keep going, or something like that. And maybe he can start a couple rows back, and hopefully we can put ourselves in a position to start trying to win another one here,” said Pursley.

The driver brought up the previous year’s almost catastrophe when Larson lost control of his car and rode up the side of the wall on the front straight. He narrowly avoided his competitors, but did end up tearing the signage from the wall, signaling the third restart of the race. Despite this, Larson still kept going.

So Pursley just wants a clean race where Larson doesn’t get lucky again, and others get a fair shot to win as well.

Pursley has his eyes set on the Golden Driller and thinks about the race constantly. He apparently even thinks about the Bowl for the 365 days until it comes around again.

“It’s one that’s always been on my mind,” said Pursley.

Pursley loves this race so much that late at night, this is the race he chooses to watch. He’ll go back to Christopher Bell and Larson’s eras of domination, and he especially loves the GoPro videos from the drivers. It’s these moments that are super cool to him, ever since he was a kid in the grandstands. He now gets to relive those memories and race against Larson himself.

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Pursley knew who he wanted to be since he was a child

Growing up, Pursley spent a lot of time watching the Chili Bowl. He got to grow up watching the making moments of drivers’ careers, like Larson and Rico Abreu. The moments he watched of these drivers are his favorite childhood memories, still to this day.

“I mean, I grew up there before I, like, went there and raced. I was always going there and watching the shootouts and stuff. So just always going and watching the race,” said Pursley when asked about his favorite memories.

These moments had such a lasting impact that they inspired his dream job, stock car racing, which he achieved. One of his earliest memories was of the shootout race, where he first discovered his passion for racing cars. He was a young kid, watching Abreu, either his first or second win, doing donuts. The whole crowd was standing on their feet and chanting, “Rico! Rico! Rico!”

“It was just that moment on, ‘I wanna be that guy,’ I wanna be Rico,” said Pursley.

The Chili Bowl currently sits at 380+ entries, making it the largest group since 2021. FloRacing is the official provider and will be covering the entire event all week long. Pursley will race on Wednesday in the Chad Boat No. 86.