By T.J. Buffenbarger
(July 19, 2025) — The king has been crowned, and people are starting their journeys home from Eldora Speedway after the 42nd Kings Royal. Here are my takeaways from one of the biggest events in all of sprint car racing.
- Leading into the Kings Royal and throughout the event a lot of the discussion was centered around how drivers would fair from the World of Outlaws and High Limit Sprint Car Series going into one of the sprint car racing crown jewel events.
When Saturday’s finale for the Kings Royal came around it ended up being stars from outside those two organizations that stole most of the spotlight.
It seemed fitting on a night where 1986 Kings Royal winner Don Kreitz Jr. was honored as the sovereign king that crowns the winner of the event that another Pennsylvania driver would take home the top prize.
The PA Posse ran wild Saturday night at Eldora Speedway to the delight of their passionate fan base. From Ryan Smith’s run around the bottom in the Kreitz 69K, to Danny Dietrich winning his heat race, and Macri securing the outside front row starting position by winning the fifth heat race made sure the Posse was going to leave their mark on the 2025 Kings Royal.
Even the Midwest and Great Lakes region stole some of the thunder with Brian Brown winning his heat race and turning in a strong top five performance while 19 year old Kasey Jedrzejek shocked the sprint car world in the sixth heat using the bottom of the race track to perfection to win the heat and earn the pole position for the main event.
As the night wore on, the spotlight focused squarely on Macri, who made the 40-lap Kings Royal look like another Saturday night at Port Royal Speedway, rim riding the high banks of Eldora Speedway with the greatest of ease, holding off two of the best sprint car drivers on the planet in the process in Rico Abreu and Kyle Larson.
Soft spoken and reserved outside the race car but a force behind the wheel, it was easy to see what the win meant to Macri, showing as much emotion as I’ve ever seen out of him. The first time I met Macri in 2021 when he was driving for Bernie Stuebgen at Eldora, my first interaction with him left me wondering how this was the same kid that ripped fearlessly around Port Royal every week.
Macri has shown a lot of growth since then. From the scrutiny of the short separation from his family-owned team, filling in for Tyler Courtney under a bright spotlight and eventually putting that entry into the final for the Knoxville Nationals, and returning to the family operation and taking it on the road more frequently to better themselves.
It’s been fun to watch the journey of Anthony Macri, and the sentiment is shared by others as both Abreu and Larson seemed sincerely happy for Macri’s success on Saturday. The best part is at just 26 years of age Macri is still far from his peak potential.
There was a time when World of Outlaws drivers would often just dominate an event like this. We are starting to see more often drivers from outside the national touring series able to be legitimate contenders for these major event victories.
- With all the violent crashes throughout the week being the main discussion point about the Kings Royal weekend at Eldora Speedway, the track staff dialed up a tremendous racing surface for the finale on Saturday.
Even a rain shower that hit mid-afternoon could not derail the best night of racing out of the four. Eldora track staff rolled the surface tightly in anticipation of rain and ended up producing a wide racing surface where drivers could use the top and bottom most of the evening.
While there was still a serious incident involving Brad Sweet (more on this later), the night was more typical of Eldora Speedway action with all six heat races being highly entertaining and the B-Main having a lot of action with comers and goers throughout the event.
Even the depression in the surface going into turn one was not as much of a factor with the harder racing surface on Saturday. Hopefully this is the kind of surface Eldora can dial up for the next Kings Royal.
- After the completion of the four nights of racing at Eldora Speedway the High Limit Sprint Car Series saw their top three in points all have to take trips to the hospital during the event in Brad Sweet, Aaron Reutzel, and Tyler Courtney.
As of this writing we do not have any kind of status update on Sweet’s condition other than he was transported to a local medical facility for treatment, but both Courtney and Reutzel are potentially going to be out of action for a while.
While the High Limit Racing series has almost a month off coming up soon, they have an event on Tuesday at Lernerville Speedway that has implications for not only the overall championship, but also for the mid-week money series.
This could open the door for Rico Abreu, Brent Marks, Justin Peck, or another one of the High Limit drivers to take a run at the drivers point championship. It also brings speculations on who may fill in for Reutzel and Courtney in the short term.
There will be a lot of attention on Tuesday’s event to see how all of this plays out for that night and for the rest of the 2025 season.