From NBC Sports
Rico Abreu did everything in his power to continue the championship fight into the final race of the inaugural High Limit Sprint Car series, including winning Tuesday night at Lincoln Park Speedway in Putnamville, Indiana, but a strong start to the season by Kyle Larson was unassailable.
Leading into the final event of the eleven-race season, Abreu won three of five and cut series Co-Owner Kyle Larson’s point lead down to just six points. Despite elevating that to four-for-seven, Larson held on to win his first national touring Sprint Car championship, a feat that would have been impossible at this stage of his career if he and brother-in-law and fellow Sprint Car Champion Brad Sweet had not created the mid-week series.
“I don’t get the opportunity to race for points in the dirt stuff that I get to do,” Larson said after finishing third in the race.
Larson’s early season success meant that fate was not fully in Abreu’s hands going into the final race. A finish of seventh or worse by Larson was needed to secure the title.
Abreu started the feature on the pole. Larson was in seventh. If those positions stood at the end of the feature, Abreu would’ve successfully hunted Larson down and won the championship by one point.
“He put together a really good second half of our season and I didn't,” Larson said about the pressure placed by Abreu as the season came to a close.
Larson referenced the season opener at Lakeside where Abreu suffered a flat tire while leading and ended up with a DNF. The point swing that night was 36 points. Without that misfortune, if everything else held during the season, Abreu would’ve entered Lincoln Park with an 18-point lead over Larson.
“They’re going to be hard to beat,” Larson said of the 24 team. “He had some issues there at Lakeside and ultimately took him out. Still, we had to be our game. He was still chipping away at it the last five or six races. Fun battle and cool to win the inaugural.”
In Tuesday night’s feature, the audience was gifted with the opportunity to watch Larson hunt the front of the field after a subpar qualifying effort. Larson made quick work of getting into the top five from seventh and started to eye the podium. At the front, Abreu controlled the lead with Cap Henry and Kerry Madsen in hot pursuit.
With 14 laps remaining, Henry caught Cory Eliason’s left rear wheel and turned in front of the field. Larson narrowly missed being swept up in the carnage when he made the quick decision to turn right and head to the top of the track as chaos corkscrewed to the bottom. After the red flag, Larson continued his pursuit of the front.
With eight laps remaining, Larson got around Madsen to put the two championship contenders at the front of the field. Abreu defended the lead against multiple sliders. The intense battle lasted for five laps and lapped traffic became the difference.
Abreu secured more space to Larson. A few laps earlier Madsen failed to defend against Tyler Courtney, who was running in third on the final lap before passing Larson in the closing moments.
“We had a good balance to our car and track position and just executed," Abreu said. "I’m super thankful to be racing with these guys and the experience that they’ve brought to our team.”
Abreu has spent the last few years running a true outlaw schedule traveling between the major dirt sprint series of the World of Outlaws and the ASCoC along with local shows across the country from California to Pennsylvania. The High Limit Sprint Car Series gave the driver the chance to contend for a championship while still controlling his schedule.
A Feature (40 Laps):
1. 24-Rico Abreu[1]; 2. 7BC-Tyler Courtney[6]; 3. 57-Kyle Larson[7]; 4. 55-Kerry Madsen[4]; 5. 71X-Kevin Thomas Jr[5]; 6. 13-Justin Peck[8]; 7. 26-Zeb Wise[11]; 8. 4-Chris Windom[17]; 9. 5T-Ryan Timms[25]; 10. 97-Scotty Thiel[23]; 11. 19-Ayrton Gennetten[16]; 12. 1-Brenham Crouch[20]; 13. 50YR-JJ Hickle[14]; 14. 71-Parker Price Miller[18]; 15. 16TH-Jake Swanson[15]; 16. 21H-Brady Bacon[9]; 17. 28M-Conner Morrell[22]; 18. 2MD-Cap Henry[2]; 19. 39M-Justin Sanders[12]; 20. 30-CJ Leary[13]; 21. 9-Chase Randall[21]; 22. 12-Robert Ballou[24]; 23. (DNF) 7N-Darin Naida[19]; 24. (DNF) 11-Cory Eliason[3]; 25. (DNF) 83JR-Michael Kofoid[10]
See the latest from the High Limit Sprint Car Series:
Photo's: High Limit Sprint Car Series