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Rico Abreu going full time, plus High Limit has teams talking charters | Daily 12-7-2023
High Limit picks up their biggest signing yet, plus more details on their full time team model. We've also got news from Eldora, USAC, several new ride and drivers announcements, and more. Let's go!
It's Thursday, December 7th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.
I figured we'd get another sprint car full timer announcement or two on Wednesday, and the day did not disappoint. In their probably most impressive sales job to this point, Brad Sweet and Kyle Larson were able to convince Rico Abreu to sign on full time with High Limit for next season. In 11 years racing sprint cars at the highest levels, Rico had never previously run a series, but that will now change in 2024. He becomes the seventh full time High Limit driver, joining Brad Sweet, Jacob Allen, Kasey Kahne, Zeb Wise, Cory Eliason, and Brenham Crouch. I've said all along that with no Kyle Larson at every race, High Limit needed other stars to help draw fans in, and that Rico could help fill that gap. And now they've got him. Of the drivers announced so far, and the rumored ones still to come, Rico will easily be Brad Sweet's toughest competition on the road next year. We saw him go toe-to-toe with Kyle Larson in 2023 for the midweek championship, and that will obviously continue as well. 2023 overall was a career year for Rico, winning 13 times in 71 races across all of the major sprint car series. Hiring crew chief Ricky Warner after his departure a few years ago from Tony Stewart Racing, has really been a gamechanger as Rico has developed as a driver. He told Jeremy Elliott over at sprintcarunlimited.com that he wants to support Brad and Kyle and their vision for sprint car racing, and likes the package they've put together. On the Tuesday Daily show, I mentioned that High Limit was pitching teams a bit of a different setup and relationship for owners, especially when it came to money and how it's paid out. And Rico's quotes to Jeremy are the first time I've seen anything shared publicly about what they are doing. He said quote "I think what they are doing is very important to our industry. What they've been doing internally behind the scenes that not everybody sees, with the safety team and understanding the charter side of the business with the revenue share, these are major things that have potential and can grow Flo and High Limit together" unquote. "Charter" and "revenue share" will be key words for High Limit as it looks to the future and attracting teams to the series, and are words the NASCAR fans in my audience will know well. Sharing streaming revenue with quote "charter" teams is something that's laid out in the High Limit driver and team agreement. Hopefully we'll get comments from Brad or the other High Limit leadership on this aspect in the near future. Looking ahead to the coming days, High Limit remains on schedule to break past 10 full timers. With the names I know about, they are sitting at 11, and there are two others I know of who are supposedly considering, taking them to 13. The model they have put together is for 14 full time teams. Stay tuned.
Moving on, as more schedules start to be revealed around the country, other important details are coming out as well. At Eldora, the Dirt Late Model Dream will feature a bit of a reworked format, and a reworked payout. Instead of twin features Thursday and Friday, the field will now be split, with half running one day, and half running the other. Those prelim features will pay $25,000 to win and $2000 to start. So instead of everyone running three programs, teams now get one prelim night and the big show Saturday. Also, the Dream main event payout has been reworked. It's now $100,030 to win, which is down from $129,000 to win a year ago. But that money is being redistributed, along with a purse bump, down through the field. The Dream will now pay $6000 just to start, and non-qualifiers will see bumps as well.
The Dream week will start off with the FloRacing Night in America Series on Wednesday, June 5th. We haven't seen the full Flo schedule yet, but we also know they will be at Fairbury July 24th right before the Prairie Dirt Classic. Those Flo shows also appear to have reworked purses, with to-win amounts down from 2023. But Michael Rigsby confirmed in a reply to wearcatchfence on Twitter that cash has been distributed more down through the feature starters. I have no inside information on when we'll see the full slate of Flo series races, but in 2022 the schedule wasn't on the website until right before Christmas. So no guarantee we'll see it this weekend at PRI.
In some other late model news items, Hudson O'Neal will be at the Gateway Dirt Nationals indoors in St. Louis next week, but not with the Rocket house car. Instead of his usual seat, O'Neal is partnering up with Boom Briggs to take on the $30,000 to win event. It will be the third time O'Neal has raced the indoor show, and 2022 was memorable, with Huddy and Tyler Carpenter tangling during the Friday prelim program. O'Neal actually hit the opening at the back gate if you might remember, and then retaliated in the aftermath. He was done for the weekend after, as the car was too damaged to continue. At last look, the entry list for the Dome was pretty insane. Something like 140 plus cars are expected just on the late model side, with many of them crates. There are several drivers who plan on doing double duty as well with the modifieds, including Ricky Thornton Jr. and Mike Harrison.
On the Wednesday Daily show, we talked about Dustin Sorensen's plans to go full time with the World of Outlaws Late Models in 2024, and the series added another rookie contender later in the day. Indiana young gun Tristan Chamberlain will run Longhorns for Holly and Wayne Gibson in their 20TC car out on tour next season. His dad Duane, who was a racer himself, will crew chief the effort. The 16 year old Chamberlain was the rookie of the year at the World 100 back in September, finishing 18th in the 100 lapper. He was also the Ultimate Heart of America series champion back in 2021. He made six Lucas appearances in 2023, between Florence and Brownstown, and two Outlaw appearances at Brownstown and Ponderosa. His best result was a 13th. This will be a big step up for Chamberlain, especially if last season's Outlaw field is any indication of what we'll get in 2024.
Earlier this week, we found out that Jake Swanson has a new USAC sprint car ride with Scott Benic for 2024 after parting ways with Team AZ. And now we know what Team AZ's plans are for replacing Swanson. The team has signed 2023 USAC National Sprint Car rookie of the year Daison Pursley to compete full time next year. Pursley drove the 21AZ at Cocopah in October, sweeping the USAC CRA Western World Championships weekend. And now they'll keep the deal together. Besides the full sprint car schedule, Pursley will also drive for the team in all of the USAC Silver Crown events on dirt in 2024. He kicked off this past season by winning one of the USAC shows at Volusia during DIRTcar Nationals, and he ran the full USAC midget season for Reinbold Underwood. There was nothing in the release from Richie Murray about Pursley's midget plans for next season.
As for USAC as a whole, they released all three national schedules yesterday. 30 midget dates, from Kokomo in April, to Turkey Night at Ventura at the end of November. The BC39 returns, although exact dates are still TBA. Indiana Midget Week is June 4th through the ninth, and the Tulare Thunderbowl has been added to the end of season west coast swing. For the sprint cars, 55 races, they will start down in Florida with stops at Bubba and Volusia in February, and end at Red Dirt Raceway in Oklahoma late in October. Eastern Storm is back, June 11th through June 16th, and Indiana Sprint Week is July 25th through August 3rd. Just as it was in 2023, no west coast trips next year for the sprint cars. And the Silver Crown Series' 14 races will be split evenly between dirt and pavement. Six races will pay $10,000 to win or more, with the Hoosier Hundred at IRP paying $25k to win. There are still two TBAs, July 20th and August 16th. If the 50/50 split holds, one of those TBAs is pavement, and one is dirt. You can see all of the USAC schedules on their social media accounts, or over at usacracing.com.
For you northeast modified fans, I've got a pair of driver announcements for you. The Super DIRTcar Series has, I believe, their first two full time commitments. Mike Mahaney will be back in 2024, looking to improve upon his fourth place result in the final championship standings. He had a win, six top fives, and 10 top tens in 20 starts this past season, but didn't make the decision to go full time until very late. He'll be back in the Huttig Racing 35, and ready to go come Volusia. Also, 18 year old Matt Caprara will join the series full time next season to compete for rookie of the year. He ran big blocks all season in 2023, racing weekly at Brewerton and Land of Legends, and he had a 358 win at Can-Am Speedway. The 2024 season will start in mid February at DIRTcar Nationals, before picking back up in late March at New Egypt.
That's it for the Daily show today and this week. If you are at PRI on Thursday, feel free to say hi. I'll be there hanging out and making some content.
Hope you guys have a great Thursday out there, we'll see you back here on Sunday.