GIBSONTON, Fla. — The High Limit Racing season is up and running, and even if there was rain on opening night, Brad Sweet isn’t sweating it.
Sweet, who co-owns High Limit along with Kyle Larson, was particularly pleased when he walked around East Bay Raceway Park early on Monday afternoon while the sun was still shining. All 17 full-time drivers had arrived, 59 total cars had signed in for the “Battle at the Bay” and fans were beginning to stream through the gates.
After putting in hours of hard work over the offseason to prepare for High Limit’s first year as a full-fledged national tour, it was rewarding for “The Big Cat” to start to see it come together.
“Any time that you have a big idea, you never know what the outcome’s going to be,” Sweet said. “You take a lot of risk, a lot of it’s just ideas and thing that you think might work, but you never know until you actually get here.”
The proof of High Limit’s potential has been stacking up for a while, evident with the deep bench of drivers that the new national series has attracted. Rico Abreu, Tyler Courtney and Brent Marks are a few of the heavy hitters.
High Limit officials had more success signing teams than many expected.
“I think we knew a little bit more of the background of where a lot of these teams stood. And obviously, when you start providing more resources, more teams can step up,” Sweet said. “You see that the Outlaws have 10 or 12 guys and you know, we have 17.”
Rather than ignore it, he’s embracing the rivalry that’s begun to build between High Limit and the World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series, of which he is a five-time champion.
Sweet believes he and the 16 other “High Rollers” on the list have something to prove.
“I feel like I’m more excited or just more of a chip on my shoulder to try to win races and prove a point this year,” Sweet said. “There’s some rivalry building between the two series a little bit. We want to be considered the better drivers, and they want to be considered the better drivers.”
Notably, the No. 49 Kasey Kahne Racing driver kicked off his sprint car season by winning the World of Outlaws season opener at Florida’s Volusia Speedway Park on Feb. 7.
Outside of being High Limit’s co-owner — a role he’s been very hands-on with since the first event in 2022 — Sweet is looking forward to being in the hunt the series championship this year.
Though he made several rounds through the pits, the California native primarily wore his driver’s hat on Monday. Sweet’s ability to just be a race car driver on opening day was an important sign that things were running smoothly behind the scenes.
Sweet said he was not nearly as busy with ownership duties as he was during last year’s High Limit events.
“It’s just a really gratifying thing,” Sweet said. “It took a lot of guts to kind of do what we did, change up the status quo and make some big moves for sprint car racing. But we really believe in it. I think I’d regret not taking the risk, more than taking the risk at this point.”