BARBERVILLE, Fla. — Brad Sweet kicked off the sprint car portion of the Federated Auto Parts DIRTcar Nationals with a convincing victory in Tuesday night’s All Star Circuit of Champions 30-lap feature at Volusia Speedway Park.
Sweet, who is always a contender on the big, sweeping half-mile, watched David Gravel and Logan Schuchart wrestle each other for the lead early on, then when he was ready he passed both of them and disappeared.
“We had a good setup for the way the track rolled out tonight,” said the elated winner. “It’ll change during the week but tonight, we were dead on. David was moving around out front and I had a groove that I wanted. Once he changed his line and it opened up, I was by and gone.”
Gravel and Sweet brought the field to green on the initial start but neither led after the break, as Schuchart shot from fourth to the bottom of turns one and two and took command. But Gravel took the lead back the next time around with an inside dive off turn four and looked strong until Hunter Schurenberg went around on lap four for the race’s first yellow.
Schuchart got a big run on Gravel on the restart but the yellow and then red came right back out as Cory Eliason rode out a series of flips between turns one and two on the restart. His mount was severely mangled but Eliason walked away unhurt.
The second try saw Gravel prevail and build up a small lead before Schuchart got going on the bottom and closed in on the rim-riding Gravel just before halfway.
At that point, the leaders began lapping and Sweet decided it was time to go. He picked off Schuchart on lap 16 and blew under Gravel for the lead as they hit turn three two laps later.
From there, Sweet drove off to a comfortable lead and the finish seemed set until Schuchart found a groove he liked and drew in on Gravel with three to go. He first tried him on the bottom and failed, then surprised the crowd by sailing around him on the outside the next time around.
They finished that way, with Spencer Bayston and Carson Macedo rounding out the top five.
“I messed up,” declared Schuchart. “I took too long to figure out that I could go high into one and then diamond it off. You had to be on the bottom at the other end. Brad waited and watched us and when he saw the best line he went for it. He’s good!”
“We were too good too early,” tipped Gravel, adding “once lapped cars got in the lane I wanted and I moved over, I got a bad push. But we were close.”
Gravel, Bayston, Eliason and Courtney shared heat wins with Gravel claiming the Dash and Sheldon Haudenschild prevailing in the last-chance race. NASCAR star Alex Bowman turned fast time but failed to make the feature.
The finish:
Feature (25 Laps): 1. 49-Brad Sweet[2]; 2. 1S-Logan Schuchart[4]; 3. 2-David Gravel[1]; 4. 5-Spencer Bayston[7]; 5. 41-Carson Macedo[5]; 6. 7BC-Tyler Courtney[3]; 7. 19M-Brent Marks[10]; 8. 39M-Anthony Macri[8]; 9. 13-Justin Peck[14]; 10. 83-James McFadden[16]; 11. 17-Sheldon Haudenschild[20]; 12. 3Z-Brock Zearfoss[9]; 13. 11-Michael Kofoid[18]; 14. 21-Brian Brown[12]; 15. 1A-Jacob Allen[13]; 16. 18-Giovanni Scelzi[22]; 17. 17B-Bill Balog[11]; 18. 48-Danny Dietrich[19]; 19. 11K-Kraig Kinser[23]; 20. 15H-Sam Hafertepe Jr[21]; 21. 9-Kasey Kahne[17]; 22. 55-Hunter Schuerenberg[15]; 23. 71-Cory Eliason[6]; 24. 15-Donny Schatz[24]