WHEATLAND, Mo. — Before the final week of action in the Kubota High Limit Racing season arrived, Brad Sweet already had clinched the season championship.
Now he’s added a couple of exclamation points to his title while in the Show-Me State.
Sweet followed up his Tuesday-night triumph at I-70 Speedway with a convincing triumph Wednesday at Lucas Oil Speedway’s Diamond Classic.
The Grass Valley, Calif., veteran led 31 of 35 laps to earn $25,000 in the makeup of an event rained out at Wheatland on June 29.
“I’m really excited that we got to come back to Lucas Oil and complete the event,” Sweet said after his ninth Kubota High Limit Racing feature win of the season. “Thanks to the crowd for coming out on a Wednesday night.”
Courtney, the night one Diamond Classic winner on June 28 before severe weather wiped out the action the next night, couldn’t quite pull off the delayed sweep. The Indianapolis resident said a poor first part of the race left him too much work to do. He settled for $10,000.
“I think we were a little bit better here earlier in the year,” Courtney said. “We got good at the end of the feature. We went from the pole to sixth or seventh and just had to dig deep. That last yellow, it was nice to start behind Brad, but clean air was a huge factor. They’ve been on it, really all year. Congrats to Brad and their whole team.”
Sweet, starting outside Courtney on row one, sprinted to the lead as the green flew and set the pace through four laps, with fourth-starting Ryan Timms running second. A red flag came out after Brent Marks flipped his car on the backstretch to halt the action.
Action settled into a rhythm after the restart with Sweet holding on to a narrow lead until lap 10, when Timms took over the lead with an outside pass out of turn two.
The 18-year-old Timms had a .069-second lead when action was stopped again on lap 13 as Kerry Madsen hit the wall in turn four.
During the caution, Timms pulled into the hot pits to surrender the lead back to Sweet for the restart on lap 14. Timms, winner of the 2023 Hockett-McMillin Memorial at Lucas Oil Speedway, had a side panel come loose and had to restart at the rear. He eventually rallied to 10th.
“We got a little luck there with Ryan,” Sweet said. “Sometimes it falls your way. I got control of the race and kind of changed my lines up and tried to carry more speed.
“This track’s really weird. You think you’re gonna slow down and get gripped up, but it doesn’t work that way here. Figuring this track out, it’s new to a lot of us, but it’s a beautiful facility.”
Sweet needed only three laps to open a 1.5-second lead over Tanner Thorson with Spencer Bayston third. The trio remained in that order until lap 25, when Courtney moved past Bayston for third, with Sweet having opened a two-second lead over Thorson.
The second-running Thorson’s chances went up in smoke on lap 27 when he slowed, fluid pouring from the motor. That elevated Courtney to second and Bayston to third with eight laps remaining.
Sweet had a smooth restart and held off Courtney the rest of the way, earning the victory by .825 seconds.
“We slumped in the middle of the season, but we’ve been strong for a while now,” Sweet said. “It’s nice to get the wins. The hard work pays off. It’s such a grind throughout the year. We’re gonna finish the year out strong.”
Bayston wound up third with Corey Day fourth and Kasey Kahne fifth.
Cory Eliason set the fast-qualifying time with a lap of 12.957 seconds.
The finish:
Feature (35 laps): 1. 49-Brad Sweet[2]; 2. 7BC-Tyler Courtney[1]; 3. 5-Spencer Bayston[3]; 4. 14-Corey Day[6]; 5. 9-Kasey Kahne[7]; 6. 24-Rico Abreu[10]; 7. 99-Skylar Gee[8]; 8. 83-James McFadden[22]; 9. 10-Ryan Timms[4]; 10. 13-Justin Peck[16]; 11. 87-Aaron Reutzel[17]; 12. 26-Zeb Wise[23]; 13. 27-Emerson Axsom[19]; 14. 55-Chris Windom[12]; 15. 1-Brenham Crouch[9]; 16. 8-Cory Eliason[21]; 17. 40-Howard Moore[18]; 18. 45X-Jace Park[15]; 19. 88-Tanner Thorson[5]; 20. 3-Ayrton Gennetten[20]; 21. 55V-Kerry Madsen[11]; 22. 12X-Kameron Key[14]; 23. 19-Brent Marks[13]; 24. 17GP-Scott Bogucki[24]