Sweet Gets 80th WoO Sprint Victory
Brad Sweet on the winning track at Magnolia Motor Speedway. (Trent Gower photo)
COLUMBUS, Miss. – Brad Sweet had knocked on the door of his first World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series win of the season and the door opened Saturday night at Magnolia Motor Speedway.
By evening, the four-time defending champion had scored three second-place finishes in his last four races, but victory had eluded him. He and the Kasey Kahne Racing team continued to put in fast car after fast car, victory was just out of their reach and finally the perseverance paid off. Sweet grabbed the lead on lap 10 and fended off some late challenges to take the checkered flag.
The win was an important milestone for the No. 49 NAPA Auto Parts driver, as he became only the 11th driver in series history to achieve 80 wins. Sweet was also the fourth fastest to finish, behind only the legendary trio of Steve Kinser, Sammy Swindell and Doug Wolfgang.
“Anytime your name gets mentioned by these guys, the legends of the sport, it’s pretty cool,” Sweet said. “80 wins, it just doesn’t work without my guys at KKR. You have given me a great opportunity over the past 10 years. Since then I’ve teamed up with Eric (Prutzman) and Andrew (Bowman) and now we have Tye Wolfgang and we’re a good match.”
Sweet led the field on green after leading the Toyota Racing Dash, but it was second starter Sheldon Haudenschild who ripped up the lead to lead the first lap. It was clear early on that Sweet would be a factor as he didn’t allow Haudenschild to pull forward as they worked their way into the first part of the race.
As the leaders hit traffic, Sweet found his opening and threw a slider to Haudenschild to take the top spot. Haudenschild couldn’t regain the lead and Sweet wasted no time getting to sea.
Traffic remained a factor, allowing Haudenschild to close the gap at one point, but Sweet worked her way through slower cars well enough to keep the No. 17 NOS Energy Drink behind.
“This track is extreme in one way or another,” Sweet said. “The grip is extreme and the slick is extreme ice. You really have to be careful when accelerating.”
Sweet’s biggest challenger came in the form of current leader David Gravel. With eleven laps to go, Gravel, who started 10th, drove the No. 2 Big Game Motorsports to second and quickly caught up to Sweet. As the two navigated the traffic, Gravel seemed ready to swing at the lead, but couldn’t find the right opening. Late warnings that gave Sweet some clean air made it an even bigger task for Gravel.
“I became a bit conservative there. If I could try again, I’d definitely try downstairs,” admitted Gravel. “I just didn’t want to throw it away. I felt like if you try too hard and make a mistake it’s probably pretty easy to crash there. I got stuck on the pad in the last corner. Brad did a great job. I think we had the better car in the lapped traffic. We probably had the car to win but clean air and everything worked out for him.”
Sweet eventually rode to his 80th win by a seventh-tenth of a second over Gravel. Sweet has now won on 45 different tracks in the World of Outlaws competition.
“I was just trying to hurry,” Sweet said. “I just wanted to win for my boys. They earn it. We want to get some momentum early in the year and the car is handling well.”
Gravel maintained his second place finish, earning his fifth podium of the season and the 198th of his World of Outlaws career.
“Like I said, I think we had the car to beat tonight,” Gravel said. “We overtook a lot of fast race cars on a really aggressive track. That was a workout. That was a lot of fun and hopefully we’ll be up here (on the podium) for a lot more.”
Haudenschild completed the top 3.
“This car definitely belongs here. My boys work too hard for this thing not to be up front,” said Haudenschild. “We worked hard. In that first little part of the season we don’t have a lot of racing and we struggled a little bit so it’s just a huge confidence boost to get that NOS energy drink car up here. I feel like we belong here.”
The end:
Function (35 rounds): 1. 49-Brad Sweet[1]; 2. 2-David Kies[10]; 3. 17-Sheldon Haudenschild[2]; 4. 15-Donny darling[3]; 5. 41-Carson Macedo[4]; 6. 24-Rico Abreu[6]; 7. 1A-Jacob Allen[14]; 8. 18-Giovanni Scelzi[5]; 9. 8-Aaron Reutzel[11]; 10. 1S-Logan shoe style[12]; 11. 9-Kasey Kahne[9]; 12. 55-Hunter Schuenberg[19]; 13. 5-Spencer Bayston[15]; 14. 3Z-Brock Zearfoss[13]; 15. 11-Michael Kofoid[8]; 16. 17B bill Balog[7]; 17. 20G-Noah Gass[17]; 18. 88-Austin McCarl[16]; 19. 7S-Robbie Price[21]; 20. 84-Brandon Hanks[22]; 21. 83-James McFadden[18]; 22. 47-Eric Riggins Jr[24]; 23. 44-Carson short[23]; 24. 9P-Parker Price Miller[20]