GIBSONTON, Fla. — It was all Kyle Larson during the High Limit Racing makeup feature that opened the season for the new national tour on Tuesday afternoon at East Bay Raceway Park.
After leading all 25 laps, the driver of the No. 57 Paul Silva entry earned the fourth High Limit win of his career and his second sprint car triumph at the three-tenths-mile track.
Series co-owners Larson and Brad Sweet led the 26-car field to the green flag.
The No. 57 immediately took the lead, while Sweet went the opposite direction and fell back in the pack. Justin Peck charged from sixth to second in the opening lap in the red-and-white No. 13 Buch Motorsports entry before a caution came out for Chris Windom, who spun in turn one.
On the restart, Larson again took control while Peck, Tanner Thorson and Cole Macedo fell into line behind them. The top three kept position until lap nine, when Peck tangled with a lapped car and spun on the frontstretch.
Larson led on the restart, with Thorson, Macedo and Anthony Macri entering the picture.
The battle to watch in the closing laps was between the No. 88 of Thorson and Macedo in the Newton No. 16t sprint car. It came down to the wire between the two, as Macedo slid past Thorson in turn four on the final lap.
“The last two or three laps, he went down to the bottom and I had just enough of a run there in the last corner to get by him. I kind of wedged it in the fence and him at the same time,” Macedo said.
Larson, Macedo and Thorson completed the podium in Monday’s makeup feature.
“I felt good for sure in the feature and we had good track position to go with it,” Larson said.
Sweet climbed back to fourth and Macri finished fifth.
The finish:
Kyle Larson, Cole Macedo, Tanner Thorson, Brad Sweet, Anthony Macri, Corey Day, Rico Abreu, Brent Marks, Sam Hafertepe Jr., Spencer Bayston, Zeb Wise, Dominic Scelzi, Tyler Courtney, Parker Price-Miller, Ryan Timms, Danny Dietrich, Brenham Crouch, Tim Shaffer, Cory Eliason, Kasey Kahne, Jacob Allen, Austin McCarl, Christopher Windom, Conner Morrell, Kevin Newton, Justin Peck.