National winged Sprint Car racing has an emerging prodigy in the form of 18-year-old Corey Day.
Driving the Clauson Marshall Racing No. 14BC, Day has now swept the first two races of the High Limit Racing Midweek Money championship and is also overall the first driver to reach three wins towards the national championship.
Day races in a series that includes five-time World of Outlaws champion Brad Sweet, teammate Tyler Courtney, Chili Bowl champions Rico Abreu and Tanner Thorson and NASCAR veteran Kasey Kahne. Midweek Money is a championship within a championship that also feature Kyle Larson each week.
So again, that Day is winning with such regularity against the highest caliber of competition, is quite the statement this spring after a winter that also included a podium in a Midget at the Chili Bowl. It was also a statement in how he won on Tuesday night, enduring slider after slider in lap traffic from Thorson, at Riverside International Speedway in West Memphis, Arkansas.
“Trying to pass Rico when he’s a lap car, he’s no slouch, whether he’s leading or in that position,” Day said in Victory Lane. “This track changed a lot more than we thought. I’m glad we got that open red so we could work on our car.
“I could see that (the moisture) was going away and we were set up for it to stay wet so I’m glad we got the open red.”
The open red, and the cause for it, was the other notable takeaway from the night.
The race began with two consecutive red flags for cars that ripped the catchfence apart. And calling it a catchfence is a little disingenuous as it was closer to chicken wiring. The first instance featured Tim Crawley clipping the fence with his tire but easily pulling it down.
The second instance featured Brian Bell flipping into the fence, through it, and clipping a light pole on the other side of it. While that’s frightening enough, just clipping the pole might have stopped the car from rolling into tractor equipment too.
Adding to what has been a pretty non-competitive and disappointing start to his Sprint Car season with longtime collaborator Paul Silva, Kyle Larson climbed the wall later in the race and just missed getting into the catchfence too.
World of Outlaws also races at Riverside in August but Sprint Cars are also a regular featured class at the Arkansas bullring. In founding the High Limit Sprint Car Series alongside Larson and FloRacing, Sweet said he wanted to advance track safety standards across the country and that commitment is being pushed to an early test.
Sweet was also involved in a crash over the weekend at the Salina Highbanks where a slider launched James McFadden out of the ballpark too.
But again, the night was also about Day, who has earned the praises of all his peers, including Kyle Larson earlier in the spring.
“He’s basically me” Larson said of his fellow Californian. “He’s better than I am, or I was obviously at that age. He is in a lot better rides than I was at that age.”
But Larson also says Day has earned those rides too.
“His race craft, his maturity on the track, off the track, like all that, he’s really, really good,” Larson said. “He can run harder than anybody on the race track and be in control. So, he’s definitely the next kid coming up that probably will make it.”
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.