Winning Moment: Tuesday (Feb. 7) marked the All-Star Circuit of Champions season opener at Volusia, but it was all Outlaws up front, with defending World of Outlaws champion Brad Sweet scoring a commanding win in the first 410 winged sprint car race of 2023.
Sweet led the final 11 laps comfortably after getting an assist from teammate Kasey Kahne, who held up then-race leader David Gravel as Sweet ran him down.
Dramatic Moment: It was dramatic enough that Ashton Winger scored his first career Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series win (more on that later), but the deciding move that made that win happen came only 10 laps into a 30-lap race; Kyle Bronson all but took the lead from Winger on a restart, only for Winger to drive wide-open into turns 3 and 4 to keep the lead by inches at the start/finish line before retaking the point for good.
Role reversal of a move that Tyler Erb was able to block on Monday night, denying Winger a very likely win.
In a Nutshell: Tuesday night marked the start of major-league sprint car season and kicks off the signature Speedweeks stretch.
What They’ll Be Group Chatting About This Morning
Brad Sweet over David Gravel in the first 410 winged race of 2023 in convincing fashion. That’s gotta hurt.
There really wasn’t a ton that went wrong at Volusia Tuesday night, but the stretch of the racing program that saw two modified feature runs, the ASCoC Series do their in-person driver redraw, only to have two more modified features hit the track, felt interminably long. And it felt that way even before the fourth modified feature opened with a Big One that required a red flag for cleanup.
Lots to unpack here. One, Volusia violated the cardinal rule, which is there should never be an extended stretch where the headline cars are off the track for that long. Two, end the freaking in-person redraws. Listening to MCs ask drivers canned questions only to be told how hard the team is working is not worth holding up any program, much less a weekday event. And three, with sprint car racing already subject to more downtime than other mediums thanks to the cars being unable to start themselves, remember the impact all this downtime can have on an audience.
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