High Limit Racing co-owner and competitor Brad Sweet didn’t shy away from the topic of the week following the series debut at Riverside International Speedway last week where a pair of cars ripped through the fencing.
Specifically, Tim Crawley and Brian Bell each had incidents but the latter was especially frightening as he went through the fence and bounced off a light pole. There were no injuries but Sweet conceded on the High Limit Room that it doesn’t make it moot either.
“I don’t want to shy away from what happened and try to pretend everything is kosher,” said the five-time World of Outlaws champion. ” Obviously, the fencing was not (a pause and a shrug) … it wasn’t very adequate, to be honest.
” It’s (called) a catchfence for a reason. It’s supposed to keep the cars inside and the fans safe. We’re really fortunate that when a car leaves the track, that the driver and fans are okay. But it’s also not something we want to ignore because everything (was) okay.”
Sweet said he had a conversation with track owner Clayton Allen about the changes that need to be made in the future, while expressing empathy for what it takes to operation a race track.
“Obviously, he needs to make some improvements with cables and things to hold the fence in place,” Sweet said. “He has a big race at the end of the year, World of Outlaws are coming, so I brought it to his attention that when you’re on a big stage and that happens, there’s going to be a lot of different opinions.
“From a High Limit standpoint, we want to make sure they make those improvements before we go back there. We want to work with the tracks because we own a track, Chico, and I know how hard it is to make those improvements in a short amount of time and how much money it takes.”
Sweet co-owns Silver Dollar Speedway with Kyle Larson and Colby Copeland.
” You’re not talking about a foot of fencing, it’s hundreds of feet, and a couple hundred thousand dollars to get it where it needs to be,” Sweet said. ” There needs to be some improvements to the fence at Riverside and I hope that Clayton, with some of these big events, can reinvest that money and make those improvements so we can keep going back.
” Obviously, the crowd was great and the fans loved the racing. It’s a Sprint Car hub and I know we had some issues with some water coming up but the A main was awesome.”
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.