Dirt Racing
Courtney and Larson Take High Limit Events at East Bay Raceway Park
GIBSONTON, FL (February 13, 2024): Charles Dickens was not talking about the 48th (and last) Winternationals at East Bay Raceway Park when he wrote, in A Tale of Two Cities, “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” But his famous opening line would have been an accurate assessment of Tuesday’s 410 Sprint Car event presented by the High Limit Racing Series. The races were the first two events of the newly formed national tour (best of times), and Clay by the Bay said farewell to the division that helped to make the Winternationals a major event (worst of times).
Tyler Courtney and Kyle Larson were the last two 410 racers to etch their names into the record books. Courtney took the thirty lapper that ended the twi-night doubleheader, and Larson scored in the twenty-five lap feature that was carried over from Monday’s rain-shortened program.
Courtney Wins
Courtney was unable to say why he has been so consistently fast at East Bay Raceway Park. “We’ve been fast ever since the first time we came here. We have a pretty good package for here.” He added, “it sucks that this is the last 410 race here. I know that they have 360s here at the end of the week or next week. Sad to see it go.”
Courtney summed up his performance as “a 50/50 day.” He explained, “earlier wasn’t the best feature but to come back for the win shows the grit these guys have.”
Corey Day, the latest California phenom to go onto a national Sprint Car stage, remarked “the track was badass. I wish that the top was there in one and two, I could have made some more speed.” Despite that, he was able to mix things up with two accomplished veterans, Courtney and Brad Sweet.
Sweet thought that he missed the set-up just a bit. “It was tough. I got the lead early and was running the bottom, then I got to lapped traffic and tried to move to the top, and that wasn’t the right place to be. It felt like we didn’t have the car quite right there to maneuver through lapped traffic or to make enough speed.”
Sweet had the pole for the nightcap, with Courtney to his right. Dominic Scelzi and Spencer Bayston were in row two, with Larson and Corey Day in the third row. The final Dash cars were Brent Marks and Cole Macedo. Then came Zeb Wise and Jacob Allen. Row six paired Kasey Kahne and Austin McCarl.
The initial start was waived off due to a multi-car incident that happened in turn four. Courtney got sideways, but kept going, and chaos ensued in his wake. Larson and Connor Morrell got the worst of it with flat left rear tires requiring trips to the pits for replacements, and they were able to restart at the rear of the field. No other racers required any remedial measures.
The second try was successful, putting Sweet in control. Courtney settled into second in the early going, with Bayston, Day, Marks, Wise, Macedo, Rico Abreu, McCarl, and Chris Windom fighting for positions behind them.
Sweet stayed out front for approximately a third of the contest. By then, he was into lapped traffic, and he was having difficulty maintaining his pace. Courtney, Wise, and Day were challenging Sweet, and Courtney emerged with the lead by lap twelve. Before the next round was completed, however, the action was interrupted by a caution for Larson.
Courtney, Day, Wise, Sweet, Bayston, Marks, Abureu, Macedo, Windom, and Anthony Macri made up the top ten for the restart. Abreu used the high side to gain several positions when the green light came on again.
After just three more laps, a three-car tangle off turn two involving Morrell, Kahne, and Larson led to another caution. Damage to Larson’s machine eliminated any hope of a second victory for him.
While Courtney continued to lead the way after that stoppage, Day and Wise were locked in a battle for the second spot. Abreu was up to fourth, with Sweet and Marks following.
Another shunt, involving Danny Sams and Kahne, set up a restart with ten to go. Abreu went to the high side again to try to pick off Wise and Day. He climbed Wise’s wheel approaching turn three but somehow he managed to keep the car under control. He did lose one position to Sweet however.
Courtney continued to lead Day, Wise, and Sweet as the laps counted down. Meanwhile, Macri was challenging Marks for fifth. Macri spun in turn three with two laps remaining, ending his inspired drive from twentieth on the grid.
Courtney had the point for the final restart, with Day, Wise, Sweet, Abreu, Marks, Parker Price-Miller, Windom, Bayston, and Allen lined up behind him.
The remaining two laps were hair-raising, as drivers throughout the field looked for any opening to move ahead.
After Courtney and Day took the checkers, Abreu flipped wildly in turn four. Most of the pack made it by his wreckage, but Cory Eliason clipped Abreu’s machine as he rounded the last turn.
Sweet checked in as the third place finisher, with Wise and Marks rounding out the top five. Price-Miller, Windom, Bayston, Allen, and Ryan Timms were sixth through tenth.
Wise blasted around the track in 12.229 seconds to set the mark in Group A, and Bayston turned in a lap of 12.544 seconds to top Group B. Davey Franek led the way in the non-qualifiers race. Courtney, Marks, Bayston, and Sweet prevailed in their respective heats. Brandan Mullen won the C Main, and Tanner Thorson captured the B Main. Sweet won the dash from the pole. Brenham Crouch and Cory Eliason were afforded series provisionals.
Larson Leads Off
The champion of the abbreviated 2023 High Limit schedule, Kyle Larson, was the matinee idol. He started on the pole and led wire to wire to get the first checkered flag of 2024 for the new national series. Along the way, Larson had to fend off challenges from Justin Peck, Tanner Thorson, and Cole Macedo.
A mid-race challenge from Tanner Thorson spurred Larson to victory. “I got kind of blocked, well, not blocked, but just my momentum kind of stalled out there in traffic. I saw Tanner’s nose in one and two. I was getting nervous because Jacob (Allen) was down there and he was inching away from us.
Then I saw Tanner and at that point I had to get up on the wheel and get past (Austin) McCarl pretty quickly. Once I did that, I was able to get going again.”
Series founders Larson and Sweet were on the front row, with Thorson and Macedo in row two. Abreu and Peck were matched in row three, with Sam Hafertepe, Jr. and Macri in the fourth. Price-Miller and Timms covered row five. Then came Day and Wise.
On the opening lap, Wise looped it at the entry to turn one. Remarkably, the fourteen racers behind him avoided contact. Larson led lap one, followed by Peck, Macedo, Thorson, Sweet, and Macri. Brenham Crouch brought out a yellow with one complete.
When the race resumed, Peck was shadowing Larson. When the leaders got to lapped traffic, Larson was picking his way through, while Peck was riding the rim to stay close. On lap eight, Larson split two lappers between turns three and four. Peck could not follow him through the hole. As he ran through turn two, Peck saw an opening between the lapped car of Chris Windom and the outside wall. Peck tried to sneak by, but Windom drifted up the track, pinching Peck against the wall and collapsing his front end in the process.
Larson completed the remaining sixteen laps without incident. Thorson gave chase most of the way, but Macedo made a slick move in traffic to take that spot away in the waning laps. Thorson held on for third. Sweet and Macri completed the top five. Day, Abreu, Marks, Hafertepe, and Baystonwere the next five across the scoring loop.
Sweet stopped the clock at 12.550 seconds to top Group A. Macri was the best of Group B with a time of 12.612 seconds. Chris Martin prevailed in the non-qualifiers race. Larson, Thorson, Macedo, and Abreu captured heat wins. Martin also won the C Main, and Tim Shaffer scored in the B Main.
Larson was the Dash winner. Series provisionals were awarded to Crouch and Morrell.
Mod Lites Do Double Duty
Support was provided by the DIRTcar United CCC Mod Lites. The wins went to Jimmy Wills in the afternoon race, and to Jimmy Smith in the final event of the night for the class. Following Wills across the line were Smith, Tim White, Logan Lewis, and Ryan Dodd. Wills chased Smith home in the finale. Then came Zach Sobotka, Ryan McKinney, and Teddy Williams, II. Smith and Todd Brennan took the honors in heats held on Monday before the rains came. White and Wills won the heats for the Tuesday contest.
TULSA, OK (January 15, 2024) – Sye Lynch is planning on competing full-time in the Kubota High Limit Racing Series in 2025 the Apollo, PA native announced Wednesday night at the Chili Bowl Nationals in Tulsa.
“This is all I’ve ever grown up knowing,” Lynch told the FloRacing broadcast in Tulsa. “I’ve gotten some good advice from some good people. A lot of thought has been into what it takes to become a national team.”
Lynch, a third-generation driver, is the son of Ed Lynch Jr and grandson of the late Ed Lynch Sr. and started out on Friday night’s at Lernerville Speedway. The past few years has seen Lynch running events sanctioned by the World of Outlaws and the All Star Circuit of Champions, which has become High Limit.
“For my operation, being a local, homegrown operation with my main partner since I’ve had since day one, we’ve really just looked at our goal from three years ago, which was to become a full time All Star (Circuit of Champions) team,” explained Lynch. “Then with it transitioning into High Limit, it obviously caught out attention”.
Lynch ran 25 High Limit races in 2024, scoring two podium finishes to go along with his 2023 podium in 23-race. All of that running was exactly what Lynch needed to confirm the next step in his plans.
“Running with those guys night-in and night-out was obviously only the top of the iceberg as far as seeing if we could do it.”
Next up for Lynch is trying to qualify for the 2025 Chili Bowl, which he will attempt to do Thursday night at Tulsa Expo Raceway.
TULSA, OK (January 14, 2025): Landon Brooks, a relatively unknown Sprint and Midget racer from California, scored a major upset win on Tuesday night at the Chili Bowl. His victory was the first for car owner Matt Wood, and gave that small team the distinction of having two cars locked into the Saturday A Main. The lead driver for Matt Wood Racing, Shane Golobic, finished second to Kyle Larson on Monday and spent Tuesday acting as crew chief and driver coach to the twenty-one-year old pilot.
“It honestly feels unbelievable,” Brooks noted. “I haven’t taken it all in yet. When I passed the checkered flag, I couldn’t believe it. I fell back to seventh there and, you know, I started rolling the bottom and got back to fifth. They all kind of creeped to the bottom, and I was able to rip the top and get to second. Luckily, I was able to reel in Brenham (Crouch) and throw a few sliders on him and pull it off.” He added, “by the end of it I was trying to go where they weren’t. Luckily, when I did go to the bottom I could make up some ground and, when I went to the top, I was able to pass some cars.”
The thirty lapper had Brenham Crouch and Hunter Schuerenberg paired up on the front row. Kevin Thomas, Jr. and Gunnar Setser were in row two, followed by Corbin Rueschenberg and Clinton Boyles. Brooks was inside Billy VanInwegen in row four. Then came Stevie Sussex and Brad Sweet. Derek Hagar and Jake Bubak occupied row six. Further back in the field were former winners Hank Davis and Buddy Kofoid (both in row nine), and notable veterans Jonathan Beason and Thomas Meseraull (both in row ten).
Crouch staked out an early lead, but a quick caution for Thomas nullified the start. Crouch again surged ahead, with Rueschenberg, Schuerenberg, Setser, and Boyles giving chase.
Sweet and Bubak tangled on lap two, and their skirmish was followed by another involving Schuerenberg and Sussex three laps later.
With those early incidents out of the way, the racers finally got into a rhythm. Crouch maintained his advantage for a dozen laps, with Setser holding second. Boyles was third, and coming, but his crash in turn two ended his race soon after the midpoint in the contest.
Meanwhile, Brooks was working his way forward again, having lost several positions in the early going. He was up to fourth, and held his own through a pair of cautions.
The next five laps consisted of Crouch fighting off Setser and Rueschenberg with Brooks searching for an opening. He found the top line and, with five to go, he began to assert himself. He rolled by Crouch with three to go. Crouch came back on the next round, but he could not complete the pass. The duo traded sliders on lap twenty-nine.
While that excitement was happening, Kofoid climbed into contention. He was hovering around seventh and he picked up a couple of spots before the stretch run. He was third and closing when the checkers waved.
Crouch noted that he was able to stay in clean air quite a bit with the cautions. “I kept looking over and they just kept telling me ‘you are doing good, good.’ They didn’t tell me anybody was doing anything I wasn’t. I just stuck to the top. I started stripping the nose and I started getting up on the wall there a couple of times. I figured, you know, somebody’s gotta be coming. I just felt comfortable up there. Landon (Brooks) got by me and he did the same thing, and we kind of got to racing. I kind of thought maybe I slide myself and I wanted to keep my momentum up, I thought I chose the best option. Landon was able to get back by me when I made a mistake, ultimately ran second. As hard as it is to be mad at myself to run second, we are in the show and we accomplished what a lot of people can’t, so just very grateful for that.”
Kofoid explained his run to third thusly. “I needed to pick off some guys and kind of make up most of passes early. I was able to kind of run the bottom a little bit and then get to the top. I was good on restarts and then once we had some of those crashes in front of me that kind of helped me out. I looked up and I was running seventh or eighth. I had a good restart and I was, like, I’ll try the bottom and I think I got to fifth. I think maybe another restart and was almost third and had the yellow and had to go back to fifth. Some of the guys moved to the bottom and I probably showed them the bottom, and some of them got up through there. Landon (Brooks) got up through there, so I was, like, OK, I guess I’ve got to go back to the top. I actually fell back to like sixth or seventh and kind of started hunting them down. I was trying to minimize my mistakes and not use the cushion as mush as maybe some other people were and (I) was able to pick and choose where I was able to pick up the cushion. I was able to pick up the cushion. I was able to not throw the nose and get close to guys and slide them and kind of put them away. When it gets that slick you can’t really cross people over. I was just able to pick them off one by one.”
After Brooks, Crouch, and Kofoid came Rueschenberg and Setser, making for a very unlikely top five. Kameron Key, Davis, Kaylee Bryson, Bubak, and Derek Hagar rounded out the top ten. Ricky Thornton, Jr. came from the shotgun position to reach twelfth.
The nine heat winners were Setser, Bubak, Kofoid, Nathan Crane, Mason Hannagan, Davis, Bryson, Brooks, and Brandt Twitty. Crouch, Brooks, Sussex, and Sweet captured the qualifiers. High Limits race director Mike Hess was a C Main winner, along with Caleb Stelzig. Davis and Kofoid won their respective B Mains.
TULSA, OK (January 13, 2025): Kyle Larson completed the NASCAR sweep on night one of the 2025 Chil Bowl. After finishing seventh to Christopher Bell in the Race of Champions, Larson came back in the nightcap to earn the first qualifying night win. Larson benefited from a lap twenty-nine caution which set up a green-white-checkered finish. His slide job in turn one on the final restart came up a bit short, but he nailed a perfect one at the other end of the speedway. Then he held off desperate counter attacks from Shane Golobic during the final lap.
Larson explained the final two circuits thusly. “Well, I was obviously happy that the caution came out, and it just felt like if I could exit with (Golobic) on the restart I would try and slide him but he did a really good job in one and two. I got a good enough kind of ramp off of the wall down the backstretch, and just going to try the same thing and hope that he didn’t nail that corner. I think that’s what happened, and then (I) didn’t really know what to do after that. I didn’t really want to leave that door open and run the wall. I felt like I could protect myself enough just sliding myself enough for the next lap. Great race, but I need to be a lot better. It was a lot of work to get back to the front. We’ll work on it and hopefully hit on something for Saturday.”
For his part, Golobic was frustrated that he did not win, but he was nonetheless pleased that he again put himself into a good position for Saturday, given that the top two finishers were locked into the grand finale. “Last lap didn’t go our way. I thought maybe if I could just circle him in (turns) one and two when he threw that slider I thought that we were going to be OK. Then I tried to slip it in and get it rotated into three, and I didn’t. (It) pushed real bad and got up on the wall and let him by. I felt like we got a good run off two down the backstretch, and then he slid himself obviously which was the thing to do. I thought that I might try to out-slide him (but) I wasn’t going up and try and destroy the thing in three and four and run the wall like in three and four. Thought about hooking the bumper, honestly, but didn’t abd, heah, we’re in a good spot for Saturday, we’ll take it.”
Golobic was paired with Tanner Carrick in row one for the thirty lap finale. Briggs Danner and Larson lined up behind them. Then came Ashton Torgerson and Zach Wigal. Cannon McIntosh and Trey Marcham made up row four. Justin Peck and Jerry Coons, Jr. were in row five. Gary Taylor and Cap Henry rounded out the first half of the field.
Golobic wrestled the lead from Carrick on the opening lap. Torgerson, McIntosh, and Danner followed. Danner moved forward, reaching second by lap five. Carrick attempted to regain the position but he hit the treacherous berm in turn four, causing the car to bicycle and losing two spots in the process.
On the next trip around the tight oval, Danner made a bid for the lead. Unfortunately, his car tripped over the curb in turn four and Danner crashed out of the race.
McIntosh inherited the second position for the restart, with Torgerson, Carrick, Larson, and Peck in tow.
On lap eight, McIntosh slid by Golobic for the lead. The duo battled for the top spot for the next eight laps. A caution gave them a clear track. With more room to move around, Golobic regained the lead with a slider in turn four on lap twenty-three.
Meanwhile, Larson was working his way toward the front. He had just taken the third position when a caution was displayed on lap twenty-five.
On the restart, McIntosh tried a slider to regain the lead, but Golobic was up to the task. McIntosh’s failed attempt gave Larson the outside line and he built some momentum. Now, McIntosh and Larson were trading sliders for second.
Larson assumed control of second on lap twenty-seven and he began to close in on Golobic as the laps counted down. Golobic was pressing, and his car bounced off the berm in turn one, but he was able to maintain a slim advantage over Larson as they took the white flag.
Before the leaders could complete the final lap, however, the caution came out one, last time. That set up a two lap dash for the cash.
Larson tried to slide Golobic entering turn one when the race resumed. Golobic held him off. But Larson got a good run into three and his slider for the lead was perfectly done. Golobic fought back in the final two lap, but he could not overtake Larson.
At the checkers, it was Larson over Golobic and McIntosh. McIntosh explained that he may have been too conservative in the late stages of the race. “I just slowed the pace down too much trying not to take ourselves out, Obviously, you’ve got to think big picture. As much as winning a prelim night is cool, you definitely want to be there on Saturday. Just slowed the pace down too much and they (Golobic and Larson) were able to capitalize, and (I) just didn’t have enough there at the end. I think we know what to do come Sarurday and hopefully go win that B and put ourselves in a good spot.”
Brent Crews charged through the field to take fourth. Interestingly, he advanced from the C to the B just before this impressive run. Torgerson was fifth. Coons, Joe B. Miller, Peck, Trey Marcham, and Dillon Welch rounded out the top ten.
Heat race wins went to Larson, Peck, Nick Hoffman, Torgerson, Coons, Danner, Golobic, and Gary Taylor. The four qualifiers belonged to Golobic, Danner, Torgerson, and Carrick. Crews and Cade Taylor scored in the C Mains, and Crews and Carson Bolden prevailed in the B Mains.
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