Brad Sweet and Rico Abreu each won a 25-lap feature Wednesday night in preliminary action for the Eldora Million at Tony Stewart’s Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio.
Sweet won the Group A feature over Aaron Reutzel and NASCAR’s Kyle Larson. Abreu was victorious ahead of Carson Macedo and the World of Outlaws Sprint Car points’ leader David Gravel. Both races seeding Thursday night’s heats, which in turn will determine the lineup for the $1,002,023-to-win Eldora Million.
Sweet led 13 of 25 laps in the first feature after securing the lead on a Lap 13 restart. Two restarts were required to get the field back to speed on that lap with Reutzel taking the top spot initially. When it was waved off, Sweet showed patience to get a jump the second time.
"(Reutzel) won the first (restart on lap 13),” Sweet said at FloRacing.com. “The second one he waited a little longer and it gave me a little more of an advantage. Once I got into clean air, my car was really good. I felt like we were going to race them there in lapped traffic. My car would work on the cushion, off the cushion. Pretty happy to get it in victory lane. We struggled a few times. This is tough. This is a tough field of cars. And it’s all about tomorrow, that million dollars. Obviously tonight getting the win puts you in a good position.”
Reutzel held onto second-place.
Larson’s third-place finish in his feature sets him up to start on the pole position of Thursday’s fifth heat race.
“That’s good and sets us up for tomorrow,” Larson said. “My car felt really good in the feature. It just got so top dominant that whoever got the lead would check out and we’d all run the same pace until he caught traffic. Much longer race tomorrow, so should be good. I’m sure the top will probably slow down some. I’m sure they’ll probably smooth the track out. So it’ll probably be a lot different. But all in all, I thought my car handled good all night long.”
📹 𝐇𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐋𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐒 📹
— FloRacing (@FloRacing) July 13, 2023
The biggest event in Sprint Car history kicked off with a pair of preliminary features Wednesday night at @EldoraSpeedway. Here are the highlights from the #EldoraMillion Twin 25s! pic.twitter.com/7TB4bQPErO
If Larson can take the big check home, it will be his fourth million-dollar payday after winning the 2019, 2022 and 2023 NASCAR All-Star races.
In the Group B feature, Abreu had to overcome a poor qualification effort to earn the victory. He was ninth among 41 cars in his group and three-tenths of a second behind Gravel. The spin of a wheel created an eight-car inversion that put him in position to win from the outside pole.
“We had to win that race to be in position to win tomorrow night,” Abreu said. “These guys have been doing an unbelievable job this year on my car. It’s a special time in my racing career just to be a part of something like this where it’s consistent results and you have things to build off of after every night. These guys, like I said, all this year and all last year, they just don’t give up on me. You can see it in them. It’s a bonding friendship we’ve created over time. It’s a special time in my career.”
This was Abreu’s fifth overall win of 2023 and it makes him one of the favorites to challenge for the million-dollar payday Thursday night. Abreu led 15 of the 25 laps in the preliminary feature; he will need to outlaws the competition for 50 laps if he wants to pocket the big prize.
As with Sweet, Abreu believes patience is going to be critical Thursday night.
“I think it’s going to be (about) race pace. It’s going to be torrid in the beginning,” Abreu said. “It’s 50 laps. A lot of Sprint Car drivers aren’t used to something like that. It takes a lot of patience to win these races.”
Big time players = big time plays = big time games.
— ELDORA SPEEDWAY (@EldoraSpeedway) July 13, 2023
That’s what these guys are used to doing.
20 men in the history of Sprint Car Racing have won a $100,000+ race, and 🔟 of them are competing tonight at the #EldoraMillion.
It’s all eyes on the $𝟏,𝟎𝟎𝟐,𝟎𝟐𝟑 check. 🤑 pic.twitter.com/ToadPkGp6Z
There will be six heat races Thursday night to help set the field for the Eldora Million.
Notable drivers include Macedo (pole in Heat 1) Abreu (second in Heat 2), Michael “Buddy” Kofoid (third in Heat 2), Tyler Courtney (fifth in Heat 2), Gravel (pole in Heat 3), McKenna Haase (fifth in Heat 3), Sweet (pole in Heat 4), Gio Scelzi (second in Heat 4), Kasey Kahne (eighth in Heat 4) and Donny Schatz (second in Heat 6). Click here for the complete lineups.
To automatically advance into the main, drivers must finish in the top three in their heat. All others will go to a Last Chance Qualifier.
The Eldora Million will be streamed live by FloRacing.com, subscription required.
