LAS VEGAS – For the first time in six years, a nationally touring series hit the dirt track at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Saturday.
High Limit Racing, a 410 sprint car series started by NASCAR star Kyle Larson and six-time national champion Brad Sweet, opened its second season in the only place an outfit that calls its competitors “The High Rollers” really can. In Sin City.
High Limit Racing
Saturday's $25,00 feature winner, Corey Day, standing alongside High Limit Racing co-owners Brad Sweet and Kyle Larson.
19-year-old wunderkind Corey Day won Saturday’s $25,000 feature race. The win marked a poetic ending to a weekend that could be considered as Day’s arrival on the national stage, as the Hendrick Motorsports development driver took his first career pole at the NASCAR Truck Series race across the parking lot on Friday.
While Day fell short of bringing home his first win in NASCAR competition, his performance on the dirt Saturday against stalwarts like Larson, Sweet and Rico Abreu was a staunch reminder of his potential as a wheel man.
With the influx of NASCAR fans in the stands, many of them at a sprint car race for the first time, Day also gained valuable exposure in front of the very audience he will soon be courting at the highest level.
“It was crazy,” Day said. “A lot of fans in the stands, of course. It was a new track for me, so you’re always nervous at a new track. A lot of people watching definitely makes you more nervous, too. It was really, really cool though. It was a great atmosphere with Kyle, Brad and Rico being here. There’s just a lot of great drivers here, so to win makes it that much cooler.
“I had confidence coming into it. (Racing a sprint car) is like riding a bike. You can take as much can take as much time as you want away from it, but you never forget.”
Dirt racing’s triumphant return to Las Vegas didn’t come without complications, however. “The High Rollers” intended to start their season on Thursday night, and then Friday, but ill-timed rain on consecutive nights halted those plans.
In a city that had just endured a drought from July to February, dirt racing’s return to the desert was halted not once but twice due to rain. Perhaps it worked out for the best.
Saturday’s racing weather couldn’t have been better and the crowd that attended following the NASCAR Xfinity race firmly outnumbered the attendance for the originally scheduled opener on Thursday before it was rained out.
Let team owner Kasey Kahne tell it, it was certainly worth the wait.
“I just thought the weather was great today,” Kahne said. “It was cool to have a nice sunny day, no wind, and the crowd looked really good up in the stands. It's going to be a lot of fun this season, it’ll be a tough season, but overall it should be pretty cool to see fans everywhere we go for 60 plus nights.
“I think Vegas is a good spot to open up, for sure. We’re next to the Cup race, the Xfinity race and the Trucks race. Throw two High Limit shows here, yeah, it's a neat weekend.”
While High Limit Racing hasn’t fully committed to the idea of opening their season in Las Vegas each year, the hope is that a successful event fostered a relationship with Las Vegas Motor Speedway brass that leads to the return of regular dirt racing at the facility.
“I think it would at least be in the front of our schedule, whether we open up here every year, I don't know,” Larson said. “I think it's definitely a great venue and great area for an opening or closing of the season. So, we’ll see. We’ve just got to build a relationship with Las Vegas Motor Speedway and kind of see where things go.”
High Limit officials confirmed this was a well-attended event for the series, which was largely attributed to NASCAR fans that added the weekend to their agenda. If the packed bleachers were any indication, I assume it won’t take another six years to see dirt racing in this desert again.