Rico Abreu Takes Night Two at Skagit

Rico Abreu in Victory Lane at Skagit Speedway in Burlington, WA (Photo: Sprint Car Hub Media)

BURLINGTON, Wash. — Night two of the Skagit Nationals at Skagit Speedway for the High Limit Racing sprint cars was a 30-lap feature that saw tons of action.

Tanner Thorson and Rico Abreu were the front row to lead the 25-car field to the green flag. Lead they did, in a one-two sequential order. Because of this, Thorson got away from Abreu, but Brad Sweet came up hard on the bottom of Abreu, giving him a run for his money as well as some pressure.

A few laps later, Thursday night’s feature winner, Trey Starks, slowed on the backstretch, drawing the caution. This was exactly what Abreu needed and he used it to his advantage on the restart by getting around Thorson coming out of Turn 2 with no problems.

Now in second, Thorson was faced with dirty air and more competition, this time in the form of Australian native, James McFadden, on the bottom. As they raced side-by-side down the back straight, McFadden edged himself closer and closer to the front end of Thorson’s car and got in front of him for second by the time they exited the corner.

But McFadden messed up going down the front chute and pulled a small wheel-stand in an effort to block Thorson, resulting in him losing some momentum and speed. Thorson saw this and pulled up beside him on the top side and ran with him into the corner. As they came off of 2, Thorson pulled ahead of McFadden to re-claim second.

Half-way through the race, Thorson was vibing in second and going around lap cars when lap car, Greg Hamilton, got into Thorson and shoved him into the wall in Turns 1 and 2, ending his night. Hamilton’s car was on fire and came to a stop, but Thorson was able to limp back to the pits with a flat right front.

Now with Thorson out of the picture, McFadden was in second. On the restart, Abreu jumped out to the lead with McFadden right in his dust trail, but Sweet was right there as well. As they came off of the first set of turns, Sweet went to the bottom and ran right next to McFadden down the back straightaway, but McFadden blocked him by sliding down in front of Sweet going into Turn 3.

With seven laps to go, Sweet had made his way back to the inside of McFadden. As they raced into Turns 3 and 4, Sweet slid in front of McFadden and stayed in front of him to take second at the line. McFadden took the high side and tried to get his spot back, to no avail.

Abreu was able to hold off Sweet for the remainder of the race to come home with another High Limit Racing win.

“We had to do some hairy wall-banging into Turn 1,” said Abreu about the race. “As long as I could focus on getting some clean air on my nose [wing], I could especially rip through [Turns] 3 and 4 pretty good.”