Tuesday at Lincoln Park Speedway in Putnamville, Indiana marks the end of the inaugural High Limit Sprint Car Series season where Kyle Larson leads Rico Abreu by 15 points.
With all sorts of rumors out there about the future of the series and possible mergers with the All Stars Circuit of Champions owned by Tony Stewart, Larson says this inaugural dozen race campaign has gone better than he and co-owner Brad Sweet had anticipated.
Sweet is the four-time and defending World of Outlaws champion, and also Larson’s brother-in-law, with the duo creating this series late last year with the stated mission of growing Sprint Car racing with big money mid-week shows.
“The series has gone good this year,” Larson said. “Learned a lot for sure. We had a lot of teams and a lot of fans. That’s gone well. I think it’s gone better than we thought it would.”
To his point, with the likes of Larson and Abreu headlining every race, big crowds have been the norm at markets not accustomed to seeing races that have paid out this kind of cash.
The big story, again, is the future with the industry still waiting to see what a 2024 schedule looks like, the potential for collaboration with the All Stars, and how it would all fit alongside the World of Outlaws.
“Obviously, we talk about stuff we think about doing next year,” Larson said. “Still just trying to work through some things and we’re not close to a lot of things. At least we know what we have is successful and easy to operate. We can continue to do that if we want to.”
Southern expansion?
Larson raced over the weekend with NASCAR at the Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL and was asked by local media about bringing High Limit to the Southeast. High level Sprint Cars do not frequently race in the Deep South and Mid-Atlantic.
It’s just not a Sprint Car hotbed the way it is for pavement racing or even Dirt Late Models.
“I don’t know,” Larson said. “I’m not sure. I’m not sure. You have to look at the safety side of things for Sprint Cars at some of the tracks here, would need improvements like fencing and whatnot.
“And to be fair, I haven’t raced too many of them. Like Voluneer (Speedway i n Bulls Gap, Tennesse) would be great but I would hate to flip over the wall in (Turns) 3 and 4 and fall 80 feet to the ground.
“I think there’s a lot to look at. I do think there’s a lot of good tracks in the southeast but there’s not a lot of sprint car fans either.”
The World of Outlaws ends its season every year with the World Finals at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Dirt Track across the street from where he raced over the weekend.
High Limit Sprint Car Series Championship Scenarios
Kyle Larson clinches the championship by:
- Finishing sixth or better if Abreu wins
- Finishing 8th or better if Abreu finishes second
- Finishing 11th or better if Abreu finishes third
- Finishing 13th or better if Abreu finishes fourth
- Finishing 15th or better if Abreu finishes fifth
- Finishing 17th or better if Abreu finishes sixth
- Finishing 19th or better if Abreu finishes seventh
- Finishing 21st or better if Abreu finishes eighth
- Finishing 23rd if Abreu finishes ninth
- Rico finishes 10th or worse
Rico Abreu wins the championship by:
- Winning and Larson finishes seventh or worse
- Finishing second and Larson finishes ninth or worse
- Finishing third and Larson finishes 12th or worse
- Finishing fourth and Larson finishes 14th or worse
- Finishing fifth and Larson finishes 16th or worse
- Finishing sixth and Larson finishes 18th or worse
- Finishing seventh and Larson finishes 20th or worse
- Finishing eighth and Larson finishes 22nd or worse
- Finishing ninth and Larson finishes 24th
The High Limit Sprint Car season finale airs live Tuesday night on the FloRacing streaming platform.
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.