Kyle Larson takes a High Limits Victory at Eagle Raceway

By Greg Soukup

Tuesday Kyle Larson and Brad Sweet brought their High Limit Racing Series, presented by K&B Promotions to Eagle Raceway. This was the first time that 410 winged sprints were doing battle on the high banks of America’s Home Track since 2017.

Every time that I go to a dirt track I get a good feeling, knowing that I’m going to see racing at it’s purest. My parents loved racing, so of course they introduced me to this sport at the tender age of 1 month at the now defunct and long forgotten Lincoln Speedway at Capitol Beach Amusement Park here in Lincoln. This time, as I walked through the pit gates at Eagle I got a chill. Not for the usual reasons, but because this was an experience a long time coming. As I walked up front I could feel the electricity in the air, coming from a rapidly growing crowd. When the teams started firing their mounts to get heat in the engine you could literally feel the noise in your chest! By the time that hot laps started I was in heaven. If you don’t understand the feeling that seeing and hearing 410 sprints flying around a bullring like Eagle gives and feel the buzz of hearing their engines wailing at full song, you will never truly understand dirt track fandom.

Michael Kofoid kicked off the competition by setting a fast time of 11.354 seconds in qualifying.

Heat races then were up. Michael Kofoid followed up his qualifying victory by taking the win in the TJ Forged heat 1. Dusty Zomer took home the top spot in DMI heat 2. Anthony Macri came home first in Sunoco heat 3 and Tyler Courtney grabbed the W in BR Motorsports heat 3.

Rico Abreu won the Sanders Engineering Dash, followed by Brent Marks, Anthony Macri, Kyle Larson, Michael Kofoid, Dusty Zomer, Cole Macedo and Tyler Courtney.

The KSP Gear B Main saw Sam Hafertepe Jr., Brady Bacon, Brian Brown and local racer Jack Dover transfer to the A.

Both Rico Abreu and Brent Marks declined to fall back one row prior to drawing. A 10 was rolled, meaning that Aaron Reutzel has the opportunity to win an extra $10,000 if he can win the A Feature.

The Durst Inc. finale was worth $28,023 to win and saw Rico Abreu led lap 1 in the #24 after driving around Brent Mark’s slider. Hot on his push bar were Marks’ 19, the 39 of Anthony Macri and Kyle Larson in the 57. The leaders encountered lapped traffic on lap 7 but the top 4 remained unchanged until lap 11 when Larson got past Macri for third. Lap 13 saw Lachlan McHugh get upside down in turn 4 and the red lights were lit in the corners. He was not seriously injured but his car was towed to the pits on the hook with front end damage. Marks snagged the lead away from Abreu on lap 18 with a slider and Larson joined the battle with the top 3 nose to tail tank. 1 circuit later Larson passed Abreu for second. Tyler Courtney slowed to a stop on the front stretch on lap 12 for a caution period. At that time the top 4 were Marks, Larson, Abreu and Kofoid. Kofoid moved around Abreu for third on the restart. Marks hit the rut in turn one with 14 to go, sending him flipping and the red flag was displayed again. He was not seriously injured but his car was towed to the pits. That put Larson out front, Kofoid second, Abreu third and Chase Randall moving the 9 up to fourth. Randall moved up to third on the restart before taking over second the next time around. 2 more circuits were in the books when Cole Macedo’s 14 got up and over in turns 1 & 2 for a temporary halt to the action. He was okay and his car was towed to the pits. A lap after the restart Gio Scelzi put the 18 into fourth on the restart and the run to the checkers was on!!! Abreu advanced to second the next lap. Slide job after slide job were pulled as they flew around the track but no passes were completed with Larson coming home in first, Abreu second, Scelzi third and Kofoid rounding out the top 4.

Larson stated “It was a great track! I hope all the fans in the stands and pits enjoyed that. Roger Hadan and the crew did a great job with the track. It fits my style of driving, just  great surface. I was a little worried as we all were when we saw how fast it was in the heats. Thanks to everybody here; in the pits and in the stands who couldn’t wait to get back here to see the 410’s. I’m glad that Rico and I could put on a show. The fireworks and everything, they did a really good job of making an event out of this. I was looking up at the crowd before hot laps and it was packed! I hope that when we come back here in the future that everybody shows up again because this is some damned good racing. This place is awesome!. I sure hope we can come back here. High banked bullrings seem to fit the 57”.

This was Abreu’s first visit to Eagle Raceway and he commented “That was badass racing. That’s what sprint car racing is all about. And it got better and better as the race went on. I want to thank my guys for doing a great job. This is a really cool, unique track. It’s cool to compete against Kyle because you know he’s going to give 100 percent”.

Next I spoke to Danny Dietrich who ran the 48 sprint. I mentioned that he was a long way from Pennsylvania. He said “Yeah. These guys allow me to fly in and drive their race car and have a lot of fun with it. Obviously we want some better finishes, but we’re going to a lot of new tracks that we don’t have notes for and we’re slowly building those up. We’re trying to hustle, racing against the best in the country and that’s a feat in itself. This place is definitely different. It’s a very technical racetrack. It kind of sucks that we weren’t good enough to get off the bottom. It would have been nice to run the top but we couldn’t do it. We buried ourselves in traffic and couldn’t seem to get any better”.

I moved on to fourth place Michael Kofoid. This was Michael’s first time at Eagle also. He said “It was a good run. We qualified well and finally had some better luck during the day; was quick qualifier, pulled a 4 for the dash we were good in the dash. I got up to third but fell back to fifth. We were okay in the feature. Early on we were kind of stagnant, sitting in fifth. Then suddenly started picking them off and got to second. My tire started going away middle to late in the feature. The car loosened up and I couldn’t quite get it working and fell back to fourth. With some of the luck we’ve had it’s nice to turn it around a little bit. Bernie and Dusty and Rob and everyone else who helps out on this Indy Race Parts #71. It’s good to have a good to have a good solid base from start to finish. This track is fun. I don’t see why the 410’s don’t come here more often”.

I decided to chat with a couple of our local drivers who competed Tuesday. I first spoke to Tyler Drueke, pilot of the #12. I asked him if he had had any fun, to which he replied “Yep. The 410 is always fun. I wish we had a better result, but we learned some more. We have a lot to learn to be competitive. We were clear on one side of it tonight and it took all night to figure it out. It’s good for us because we learn a lot running with competition like this. I wish we could do this more often; it would be a lot of fun”.

Next I spoke to Adam Gullion. I asked what it was like and he stated “Oh! It was insane!! It kind of went the way that I expected. We were behind the 8 ball and through the B. We were real right rear stuck and couldn’t get the car to rotate. I got the car to rotate but then it was left rear drive and would pick the front end up the whole straightaway. We finally got it free enough to rotate through the corners in the B, but then I couldn’t get any right rear feel so I had gone too far. It was an awesome experience though. I definitely think that if we could start with the car where it is right now that we would have had a better night. These guys are head and shoulders ahead of everybody. This is Mars compared to what we’re used to running. These things are absolute missiles! You stand on it and it’s gone”.

This coming Saturday at Eagle Raceway is 90’s Jam Showdown, presented by the Nebraska Lottery. There will be a free Kid’s Color Run at intermission.

Front gates open at 5:15. Adult admission is $15, youths 6-12 are just $5 and children 5 and under are free. Hot laps begin at 5:30 with racing at 6:30.

Pit gates open at 3:45 with pit passes costing $30.