Engine woes end McDougal’s hopes for shot at Chili Bowl

Jason McDougal will not compete in Saturday’s running of the Chili Bowl Midget Nationals.

The Oklahoma native, who is known for his signature charges through the alphabet soup on race day, notably his 2021 run from the I-Main to the D-Main, was forced to the sidelines after engine issues derailed his chances on Friday’s preliminary night.

In the midst of his first year with team owner Dan Binks, a legendary crew chief in sports car racing, McDougal was running second in the first C-Feature with two laps remaining when a white smoke erupted from his No. 4P machine. He pulled to the infield in his final move of the night, in what also proved to be his last moments for this year’s running in the Tulsa Expo Center. Following the series of events, Binks confirmed problems with the engine were excessive enough that McDougal will not be a participant on Saturday.

“That’s my new engine and it vibrates pretty bad, so he didn’t really like it that much,” Binks told Motorsport.com. “We were running pretty good in the C there and the oil filter gasket blew out, got hot oil all over him. It was at 9500 rpm and seven pounds of oil pressure, so this one’s done. We’ll just regroup on this one for next year and then Darin (Naida) runs in the morning.”

💔 The night comes to an end for @jasonmcdougal69 in the C-Main. Meanwhile Cale Coons steals the final transfer spot and keeps his night alive#ChiliBowl | @NosEnergyDrinkpic.twitter.com/MxS3qQAyW0

— FloRacing (@FloRacing) January 17, 2026

Binks added that if the engine had better oil pressure when the rpm range was that high, there would be some thought to make a change and give Saturday a shot.

Development has been a common theme for Binks since debuting at the Chili Bowl in 2022. His methodology has made him a mad scientist, of sorts, in always pushing the limits. And this year was no different as he confessed the engine was nothing similar to what he ran last year.

“This is way different," Binks said. "This is a clean sheet of paper; totally different. Totally different size, bore, stroke, compression ratio, rpm range. It’s totally different. Everything that I learned before, I tried to make sure it was strong enough to do everything better, and I think it did that.

"I mean, the thing doesn’t have a (push) rod out of the side. It blew the freaking oil filter up. I didn’t plan on that, but I can do a little bit better job on that. We got some work to do on the vibration stuff. It just shakes really bad. He didn’t like that. He said the steering wheel feels like it’s three inches around in this thing, so we just got some work to do.”

The focus now, however, is making sure similar issues don’t happen to Darin Naida, McDougal’s teammate, who is the only other entrant for Binks that will compete on Saturday.

“We’ve learned a lot and we’ve changed a lot,” Binks said. “I didn’t expect an oil filter to blow up, but this thing is oil cooled so there are a lot of things that’ll happen that’s not normal. What we learned now is to pay attention to this one a little bit closer on that and learn as much as we can for next time.”

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