By T.J. Buffenbarger
Knoxville, IA – (August 13, 2015) – Rico Abreu has qualified for the FVP Knoxville Nationals A-Main but will not be participating in the final on Saturday night. Abreu has a prior commitment to the NASCAR K&N East Series at Motordrome Speedway on Saturday night and will not have time to make it back to Knoxville Raceway.
Sitting down with TJSlideways.com following Thursday’s preliminary night Abreu explained that he came to Knoxville knowing he would not be able to participate in Saturday night’s program.
“I came here knowing I wasn’t going to race Saturday night, so I just treated Wednesday night like another race,” said Abreu.
For the Knoxville Nationals a car must take the green flag to collect the start money. With Saturday night’s feature paying $9,500 just to start Abreu and crew chief Paul Silva were trying to hatch a plan to start the car with another driver. Normally finding a driver to start the car would not be as much an issue, but due to Abreu’s height of 4 feet and 4 inches and some of the modifications done the car finding a replacement driver is not quite as easy. As far as who might be the lucky driver that gets to start Abreu’s car in the A-Main, even he does not know who will get the honor.
For Abreu it will be an interesting experience seeing his car on film during the parade lap of the biggest sprint car race in the world.
“It will be cool to see it on the parade lap going around without me,” said Abreu. “That will be a first for me.”