By T.J. Buffenbarger
ROSSBURG, Ohio (July 13, 2022) — Kyle Larson and Brad Sweet met with the media on Wednesday at Eldora Speedway to discuss the formation of the High Limit Sprint Car Series slated to contest 12 mid-week events in 2023 and will host a kickoff event on Tuesday August 16, 2022 at Lincoln Park Speedway in Putnamville, Indiana.
Larson cited some of his experience in Late Models are the inspiration to start the new series with his brother-in-saw Sweet.
“I think on my behalf, you know, I’ve gotten the chance to compete in a lot of mid-week races and different series and forms of racing now and we’ve gotten to see kind of the health of those sports and believe that sprint car racing should be up there as well,” said Larson. “Sprint car racing is something I’m very passionate about and I want these drivers, Brad (Sweet) and a lot of my friends, to be racing for the money that they deserve. It’s exciting news, exciting to be a part of it, and really looked forward to getting it started with the Putnamville event in August, and then with the series next year.”
Sweet and Larson indicate their intention for the series is to help boost earnings for sprint car drivers and teams with the amount of money and events that take place in Dirt Late models, similar to the Floracing Night in America series, without scheduling against any of the major sprint cars series such as the World of Outlaws.”
“We want to be just good neighbors and work with the World of Outlaws, so those conversations haven’t happened yet,” said Sweet about World of Outlaws contracted drivers being able to complete in any of the events. “We really can’t speak on how it’s going to go. But our goal is to not affect the World of Outlaws tour. As a series we plan on running not against any World of Outlaw race at all, so we hope that we can work together and the main goal is to make the teams and drivers more money, make this more sustainable and there’s the opportunity to inject that money in it so we’re taking it.”
Sweet and Larson offered more insight on the purse structure that will be $80,000 for the projected eight $22,000 to win programs while the pair of $50,000 to win events will have a $140,000 purse. The start money for both structures will be $1,500 and $2,000 respectively as both Sweet and Larson citing a desire to take care of teams that show up to compete in their programs.
No specific tracks were named during the press conference as having events other than the race at Lincoln Park Speedway in August, but we have learned several promoters are already in discussions with the team about hosting an event in 2022. Both Sweet and Larson indicated that the entire calendar year in on the table for scheduling the 12 events.
“I think everything’s on the table,” said Sweet. “With weather and things like that it’s just like anything, we want to make sure we’re capitalizing on. Places that have good weather and you know, and that we know that we can have fans, we definitely want to have a lot of fans in the stands and, and go to venues that we know we can put on a good show.”
Larson expanded on that saying the series may try to avoid some of the busier times of year where large events are already established.
“I think like June and July there’s already a lot of racing throughout the country with sprint cars. Ohio Speedweek, Pennsylvania Speedweek, weeks like this, so I can see those being slower months for what we have going on, but I would say the other months. Everything’s kind of up for grabs.”
The inaugural event at Lincoln Park Speedway does have an agreement with a group to assist with officiating the event but were not named. Sweet jokingly pointed towards Larson when asked about why Lincoln Park Speedway was chosen for the first event because of his affinity for that racetrack, but the date and location was very strategically chosen.
“With the outlaws and their platinum agreement that leads into the Jackson Nationals. I felt like you couldn’t go near that region because you wouldn’t get as many cars,” said Larson. “The All Stars are on their way to New York. There’s a lot of great local teams, non-wing teams that seem to put on wings for Haubstadt and stuff like that and Indianapolis area I mean so close to the athletes that should hopefully draw a great crowd. Another reason why is I love Putnamville.”
The streaming component is a huge portion of this with the races being shown exclusively on Floracing to help boost the purses in conjunction with the fans showing up at the racetrack.
“That’s obviously a huge factor in what’s going on and, and all of dirt racing.” Said Sweet. “Obviously, Kyle has the relationship and was able to create something that we can show. I think that’s a big factor every night is there’s 3-4,000 people watching at the racetrack but there’s a lot of people watching from home. I think that’s where some of that money will be part of these purses. Hopefully we can keep growing these platforms with more content, especially middle of the week stuff where people aren’t able to get to the racetrack. Hopefully, that will kind of add that to monetary value and entertainment value for the fans. I mean, also, seeing Kyle Larson race is always fun.”
While hoping to boost earnings for teams in the sport, both Larson and Sweet were steadfast to be clear that they are not looking to create competition among existing series.
“We would like to just run 12 events,” said Sweet. “We feel like 12 midweek events, especially for Kyle’s schedule, allows him to still run his cup stuff, run other stuff, and then 12 events doesn’t over dilute anything too much. “