PERTH, Australia — “It was one of these races where you just go for it, there’s no points or anything on the line over here,” said Brad Sweet after winning the second round of USA v WA Sprintcar Speedweek at the Perth Motorplex on Thursday night.
The five-time World of Outlaws sprint car champion only arrived in Western Australia a few hours before the race.
Despite this, and running on very little sleep, he said it was worth it, taking the sensational feature race win from fellow American Rico Abreu and home-town young gun Callum Williamson.
“It’s fun to race for wins like that,” Sweet said. “This track, I think is just a hidden gem here in WA – it’s a long way to get here, but it’s well worth the trip.”
Sweet said it was a good first night driving for the Landrigan Motorsport W49 – a team he drove for on Australia’s East Coast last summer.
“You never know what to expect when you are coming to a new track and a car that you are unfamiliar with but they did a great job and we got better every time we were out on the track,” he said.
“I have been up for 24 hours, it’s been the longest day….but it’s worth it, it’s what we do.
“We are used to grinding it out and getting up and down the road.
“It’s what builds mental toughness, it’s not a position I haven’t been in, so you are never going to feel 100 percent doing what we do, night in, night out.”
Sweet started third after earlier in the show being fifth quickest in his qualifying group, taking a second in his heat race and going from fifth to second in the A dash.
Early in the main event he slipped into second spot momentarily before settling back into third until lap 10 – then hitting the lead on lap 13 in what was the start of intense lead changes before stretching the advantage in lapped traffic towards the end.
Like he did on Tuesday night (where he went on to claim the win that night), Abreu started seventh and was fourth after just a handful of rotations.
About mid race he slipped into third and with six laps remaining, he momentarily jockeyed into the lead before ultimately taking second.
“That’s as good as it gets and I think it is really important for people to notice the level of respect out there,” Abreu said.
Williamson, who started from pole, after being second quickest in his qualifying group and winning both his heat race and Dash, said it was surreal to be on the podium with the American superstars.
It backs up his second to Abreu on the same track two nights earlier.
Another American in the field, Cory Eliason, started on the front row with Williamson and had to settle for fourth.
Dayne Kingshott progressed eight spots to finish fifth.
The finish:
1st Brad Sweet, 2nd Rico Abreu, 3rd Callum Williamson, 4th Cory Eliason, 5th Dayne Kingshott, 6th Kaiden Manders, 7th Mitchell Wormall, 8th Luke Oldfield, 9th Brenten Farrer, 10th Brad Maiolo, 11th James Inglis, 12th Taylor Milling, 13th Jamie Maiolo, 14th Jaydee Dack, 15th Ryan Lancaster, 16th Jason Kendrick, 17th Kris Coyle, 18th Ken Sartori, 19th Cameron McKenzie, 20th Trent Pigdon, 21st Brock Zearfoss, 22nd Lynton Jeffrey, 23rd Jason Pryde, 24th Andrew Priolo.