Exclusive Interview: Chase Wark Mega Mid South FKT
The People's Champion Speaks
Chase Wark is the people’s champion, the junkyard dog of pro gravel racing.
He isn’t the most talented or genetically gifted rider. Even with years of 30-hour training weeks in his legs, his power numbers are average at best among his peers.
Whatever the circumstances, though, he always ranks as one of the most creative and tenacious riders in any race.
On Sunday, March 16, Chase set the fastest known time of 16 hours 58 minutes for the Mega Mid South, a 300-mile gravel route in and around the Stillwater, Oklahoma area, and raised $4,000 and counting to support wildfire relief for the Stillwater community. You can donate here to the local United Way fund to support that cause.
Below, you’ll find the transcript of a Choose the Hard Way interview with Chase the day after he set the FKT. I’ll be posting the audio/video podcasts with that interview + an additional longer interview with Chase about his life and career soon, too.
Now Chase has the Mega FKT.
Three weeks earlier, none of this was in the cards.
When you start a journey, you think you’re going one place.
Obstacles arise.
You stop or you find a way forward and keep going.
You end up somewhere else.
There you are.
The Mid South gravel race was scheduled to happen the day before Chase ended up setting the Mega FKT. Chase’s goal was to win that race.
Then came a windstorm blowing more than 60 miles per hour.
Then came fires the winds propelled forward that burned businesses and houses to the ground. Then the Mid South gravel race was cancelled.
A year of work went down the drain for the event’s promoter and staff, for the community and for the 4,000 riders who had descended on Stillwater for the event.
Three weeks before those fires started, Chase was in the driveway back in Minnesota packing up his van in freezing temps to hit the road for work.
That work was racing bikes and he had three races on the menu for the trip: BWR Arizona, Valley of Tears in Texas and the Mid South in Stillwater, Oklahoma.
Chase’s wife was 34 weeks pregnant with their first child and his goal was to bring home results, hopefully a win at Mid South and prize money.
He brought his bikes and his mattress, to get better sleep at the AirBNBs and dive motels and floors and wherever else he might stay when he was on the road.
The van is an actual year cargo van, a 2012 Ford Econoline with 150,000 miles, not a Sprinter Van Death Star lifted 4x4 toy used for stunt overlanding and AI-generated LinkedIn posts about lessons learned driving from the Noe Valley Whole Foods parking lot to Truckee.
Chase and his teammate Drew Dillman named their team Lunchbox Racing to honor their roots. “I grew up in a place where people pack up a lunchbox and grab their hard hat when they head out the door to go to work,” Chase told me for the Choose the Hard Way podcast.
There are gravel pros who spent their careers racing in the World Tour at events like the Tour de France who have world class engines.
Then there is Chase who himself will tell you that he is making the very most of an engine that has the bare minimum specs to be on the line trading punches with world class talent.
His edge is hustle and the ability to fold his body into a tiny, wind-cheating ball that in the right conditions brings him to parity with riders who have more raw watts per kilogram per unit of time, cycling’s magic metric.
Chase’s road trip took him to BWR AZ, a race with two factors that don’t favor Chase’s build and skillset--an abundance of climbing and singletrack.
Then it was onto Turkey, Texas for the Valley of Tears gravel race. At that race, when temperatures dropped below freezing during the race and sleet turned to snow, the race promoter called an emergency stop to the race with no advance warning with 30+ miles of racing left.
Chase had spent hundreds of hours in the basement in Minnesota preparing for this race, including a 1,000-mile week on the trainer, only to be told to stop when he was in seventh place in a group of three. He didn’t even get a chance to sprint against his group for a better position.
That’s bike racing.
Then there was Mid South and the winds and the firestorm that devastated the community and shut down the race.
Gravel pros like Chase lost the chance to compete, win prize money, get race pace intensity and hours they needed to set themselves up for the next phases of racing on the gravel calendar, get exposure for their current sponsors and hopefully set the stage for bigger sponsorships in the future.
On the scheduled race day, the circus packed up and left town and pros posted footage of the fires and the traffic jams they were stuck in, wishing the Stillwater community well and promising to come back to compete again in 2026.
Ted King and Chase Wark stuck around.
They independently decided to try to break the Mega Mid South record on the punishing 300-mile loop.
It was the ghost of gravel’s past, former World Tour rider and past Unbound winner Ted King, versus the Junkyard Dog, Chase Wark, the people’s champion.
Both rode to raise money for the Stillwater community.
Only one rider set the record, Chase Wark.
You set out on a journey.
Obstacles arise.
You stop or you find a way forward and keep going.
You end up somewhere else.
There you are.
I spoke to Chase the day after he set the record. Full audio and video podcasts coming soon, stay tuned.
@hardwaypod:
Can you take me into the absolute hardest moment of the ride? What was going through your mind?
Chase Wark:
The hardest part for me was from about 25 miles to 10 miles left. My legs felt great all day, and even then, they still felt good, but I was getting tired. It was dark. They’d laid down some rock in parts, so it wasn’t smooth gravel where I could stay in the aero bars. Maybe that was a good thing, given how tired I was.
@hardwaypod:
How did you feel at that moment?
Chase Wark:
I knew I had the record then, so I felt pretty good. As long as I didn’t flat, I was solid. Even if I dropped pace, I had at least 10 minutes on Ted. It’d be hard to lose 10 minutes over an hour, so I was pumped. I was getting texts every five to ten minutes on my Garmin — “You’re close, you got this, keep going.” I was sleepy-tired, but everything was still working. My gut wasn’t happy, though. I didn’t puke, but it wasn’t taking anything in well. Maybe it wanted more food, or maybe it was the lemon-lime Gatorade — I don’t like that flavor. I’m a blue Powerade guy. Every gas station only had lemon-lime, and I’m thinking, “This is not good.” But I was going for a record, so I’d just walk in, hit the fountain drink, fill up bottles with Gatorade, grab Pop-Tarts, and go. Pop-Tarts fit in a pocket nicely. They’re cheap at the grocery store but like two bucks at gas stations. I probably spent $20 or $30 on Pop-Tarts.
@hardwaypod:
Where was your head at during the ride? Emotionally, what were you thinking about while riding that hard for 300 miles?
Chase Wark:
Everywhere. The most emotional point was around mile 80. I was biking near houses that had just burned down in the Stillwater, Oklahoma area. Mid South was canceled because of the fires. I wanted to do the Mega anyway, but the fires gave it more meaning. I raised funds for people affected by the fires, so riding past those houses — that hit hard. I can’t imagine what it’s like to lose everything, especially if people had lived there for years.
Other times I was thinking about my wife and the baby coming. Other times, how silly I looked with all my aero gear. Wondering if I’d get the record, if I was pacing it right, if my legs would blow up. I started easy, hoping I wouldn’t crack — and I didn’t. I actually finished strong.
For the first two hours, I listened to podcasts — Bonk Bros and Pro Tri News — then music, then just silence. Usually, I always listen to something, but this was different.
@hardwaypod:
Let’s talk about what happened between the race being canceled and you deciding to do the FKT. But first, three weeks before the trip, how far along was your wife?
Chase Wark:
About 34 weeks pregnant.
@hardwaypod:
Your wife’s 34 weeks pregnant, and this is what you do for a living. You walk out the door, get in your van — what were you hoping to get out of this trip?
Chase Wark:
I planned my whole season around these three weeks. I wanted to come out strong, and if I overtrained, it’d show in April — which I don’t think happened. I wanted the best results possible before the baby came. Looking back, I accomplished my goal. I’m happy with Belgian Waffle Ride Florida and Arizona, happy with Valley of Tears. Going into Mid South, I wasn’t the favorite, but I think if that race happened 100 times, I could’ve won at least once. There were scenarios where I could’ve won. It would’ve been cool, but there’s more important things than bike racing.
@hardwaypod:
After what happened at Valley of Tears — which we’ve discussed in another recording — and with Mid South canceled, how did you feel as a pro athlete who relies on these events?
Chase Wark:
I was bummed. The other two races had technical features that don’t suit me. Mid South is flat, rolly, no aero bar ban — huge for me. They announced at 7 p.m. Friday they were still planning to race. It was still smoky, fires still going, houses evacuated. I was going to race no matter what, even if the air quality was horrible. I really wanted a result. Mentally, I was like, “If I have to be off the bike for a while recovering from smoke inhalation, I can just hang out with my baby.” Not the smartest idea, but I wanted a result.
@hardwaypod:
Then I see on Instagram you’re going for the Mid South Mega FKT. How did you make that decision, and how did you pull it off so fast?
Chase Wark:
I’ve always wanted to do an FKT that suits me and could be competitive. I didn’t want some random one; I wanted something that’d be established. On Monday, I told Abigail I wanted to race Saturday, then try the FKT Sunday — for media, to set a time. I thought I could go 18-19 hours after racing. She said, “Go ahead.”
Once the race was canceled, we were at a brewery for eight hours. Hundreds of people there, fires miles away. I thought the race would be canceled. I talked to Jason, director of Gravel Worlds, about doing media. He planned to stick around. But after the cancellation, everyone left. I was thinking of doing it Saturday but woke up tired, no fundraiser set up yet.
Saturday, my mind wandered — should I just go home to Abigail? She’s now 37.5 weeks pregnant. I was with friends Simon and Tim. Then fundraisers started, and I thought maybe I could do it for that. I asked Tim if raising $10,000 was crazy. He said yeah, but I said I’d try anyway. Then I saw Mid South’s Instagram post — Ted King was going for it. That sealed it. I had to do it.
We found Bobby. I waited an hour to tell him the plan. Then we made a video, posted it quickly. Usually, I go through an editor, but this was raw. It was late — 8 or 9 p.m. — I wanted to build hype. Got my bike together by midnight, woke up at 3:30. My mechanic Zach helped shuttle people. We watched Ted take off at 6 a.m., then scrambled to get my bike ready. Had a trash bag of gear — lights, clothes, tools. Didn’t even ride my aero bars before. We guessed the angle. Got it done, left at 7 a.m.
@hardwaypod:
Did you talk to Ted before he took off?
Chase Wark:
No, he looked in the zone. Didn’t want to delay him. We’ve only shared maybe ten words. I’m hoping we can do a podcast together. JP brought up wanting to have us both on. Even though we haven’t talked much, I feel there’s a connection — we both had the same mission of raising funds for those affected by the fires.
@hardwaypod:
At the start line, trash bag in hand — what was in it?
Chase Wark:
Lights, clothes I wasn’t sure about, bike pump. Not my tools, because I needed to adjust my aero bars. I’d ridden them once and knew they weren’t right. Guessed the angle — could’ve been a few degrees better, but good enough. I had a light issue — couldn’t mount the Exposure light, so I used a Bontrager one. Taped it to my stem mid-ride. It bounced but held up. I had three lights total. It worked.
@hardwaypod:
Of all the races and rides you’ve done, where does this rank in difficulty?
Chase Wark:
I never wanted to quit. Physically super demanding, but having meaning behind it and feeling like a race was happening made it easier to stay out. Mentally, not that hard. I’ve wanted to quit Unbound and my 480-mile ride — that one, I was falling asleep. This? I feel okay today. God gave me strength, mentally and physically. I averaged 198 watts for 17 hours — what I do on Zwift rides. It felt easy all day. Outside view: hardest ride ever. How it felt? Fun. I love riding my bike. Don’t love Pop-Tarts anymore. Top 10 hardest rides ever.
@hardwaypod:
What was your training stress score?
Chase Wark:
Only 600 TSS. Intensity factor 0.6. Normalized power 213 watts. I burned 11,800 kilojoules.
@hardwaypod:
Chase Wark, congratulations. You are the people’s champion — the junkyard dog of pro gravel racing. What’s next?
Chase Wark:
Get home, meal prep and do taxes with my wife. Next race is just a local race for me, then Sea Otter. But the baby is the biggest thing coming next. I’m super excited for that. I joked with Bobby last night that I might name the kid Bobby. That crossed my mind during the ride several times.