FORT WORTH, Texas — Saturday’s season finale at Texas Motor Speedway came down to the last lap as the two championship contenders went head-to-head with one winning the battle, and one winning the season-long war for the Interstate Batteries High Limit Racing championship.
While the box score says that Giovanni Scelzi led all 30 laps around the Fort Worth, Texas track, his path to the $25,000 victory and a weekend sweep at TMS came after an intense duel with his Rico Abreu down the stretch.
The pair were separated by a mere 0.016 seconds on Lap 28 and Abreu even passed Scelzi momentarily on Lap 29 – but the Chili’s Grill & Bar No. 77 was able to survive by 0.202 seconds at the checkered flag.
The win marked a third-straight for Scelzi and the Spire Motorsports team as they ended the season red-hot with wins at Lakeside and a weekend sweep at Texas totaling $50,000.
The Fresno, California native joins Kyle Larson, Brad Sweet, Rico Abreu, and Aaron Reutzel as the fifth driver to ever earn a hat trick with Interstate Batteries High Limit Racing.
Scelzi won the war, but Abreu got the ultimate spoil as he came out ahead by 31pts to score back-to-back series championships – his first aboard the Tony Stewart/Curb-Agajanian Racing, Carquest Auto Parts No. 24.
The St. Helena, California native joined an elite list including Steve Kinser, Sammy Swindell, Donny Schatz, Jason Meyers, Brad Sweet and David Gravel as back-to-back national sprint car series champions.
Brent Marks followed the championship leaders as he closed out the podium with a third-place finish in the Chase Briscoe Racing No.19.
The finish:
Feature (30 Laps): 1. 77-Giovanni Scelzi[1]; 2. 24-Rico Abreu[4]; 3. 19-Brent Marks[5]; 4. 88-Tanner Thorson[2]; 5. 7BC-Tyler Courtney[6]; 6. 88W-Austin McCarl[3]; 7. 9R-Chase Randall[10]; 8. 4-Kasey Kahne[8]; 9. 13-Tanner Holmes[19]; 10. 9-Daison Pursley[9]; 11. 42-Sye Lynch[12]; 12. 55-Brady Bacon[20]; 13. 24D-Danny Sams III[16]; 14. 26-Justin Peck[14]; 15. 5-Brenham Crouch[11]; 16. 11-Roger Crockett[7]; 17. 45X-Ashton Torgerson[17]; 18. 74-Xavier Doney[24]; 19. 17GP-Kerry Madsen[22]; 20. 12X-Landon Crawley[21]; 21. 21-Brian Brown[15]; 22. 3-Ayrton Gennetten[18]; 23. 22M-Rees Moran[13]; 24. G5-Gage Pulkrabek[23]
