BRANDON, S.D. — Aaron Reutzel’s dash victory Tuesday night at Huset’s Speedway was only an omen of things to come during the Billion Auto Huset’s 50 for the World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series.
After Reutzel won the dash by 2.069 seconds to earn the pole for the 50-lap main event at the quarter-mile South Dakota dirt track, the Clute, Texas, driver converted the top starting position into a wire-to-wire triumph aboard the Roth Motorsports No. 83 sprint car.
Reutzel defeated two-time World of Outlaws sprint car champion Brad Sweet by 1.16 seconds for his third series win of the season – this one worth $30,000.
It marked the richest payday of the year so far for The Greatest Show on Dirt, and Reutzel was all smiles in victory lane after his dominant performance.
“I’m pumped,” said Reutzel, whose fifth career World of Outlaws win came in his 112th feature start. “It’s seemed like, this year, we’ll get speed and then we lose it … and when we find something, it just quits working and we have to go back to the drawing board. It has been a trying year for us, that’s for sure, but we haven’t given up. I think we threw something at it this weekend and we were pretty good there tonight.
“We didn’t make any changes all night, and that always makes me a little nervous … because I usually like to change a lot, but when the car was that good, we really didn’t have to make changes,” Reutzel added. “Even during the open red, there were just one or two little things I felt that made us better. It was great, really.”
Though Reutzel officially paced every lap of the main event, his feature got off to a less-than-stellar start, as 10-time champion Donny Schatz ripped the outside to take the lead on the original green flag and left Reutzel to deal with Carson Macedo in the battle for second place.
Reutzel then nearly saw his race end in disaster, as he and Macedo made contact down the frontstretch as they came to complete lap one that sent Macedo flipping into the turn-one catchfence.
Austin McCarl came in behind the initial accident and got upside down as well, while Reutzel miraculously escaped the melee with no damage and never stopped – allowing him to retain the pole for the restart after a brief red-flag stoppage because the first lap wasn’t fully completed.
From there, Reutzel put on a master class in both restarts and navigating through traffic, as he ran away from Schatz three separate times during the 50-lapper en route to the night’s hefty payday.
Reutzel mastered the restart from Macedo’s flip, then weathered a lap-five red flag when Lynton Jeffrey got upside down in turn three before making the right adjustments during a scheduled lap-30 competition break to keep his Roth Cattle Co.-sponsored machine out front when it counted.
“I don’t know if we had some mud in the wheels or what, but I started getting a bad vibration when I started running the cushion,” Reutzel tipped. “From there, it just got a little low in the back and a little loose, so we made a couple of changes during the break and got the car right back to where it needed to be. I think if it was a full 50 (laps), it would have been pretty tough to hang on for the last 20.
“I felt really good, though, when I went to lap cars and they were all running the top,” he continued. “I’d peek at the big screen and they weren’t showing me, so I figured that was a good sign.”
Schatz played the role of pursuer during most of the feature, but after the midway break on lap 30, the NAPA Auto Parts No. 49 of Sweet came on strong as the top groove gained potency down the stretch.
Sweet slid past Schatz for the silver position in turn four with eight to go, leaving the Fargo, N.D., native to settle for third aboard the Tony Stewart/Curb-Agajanian Racing No. 15.
“I hit the first start; we drove around Aaron and I felt pretty decent, but the longer I went, the more I was hanging on to the car,” noted Schatz. “It’s not a lot of fun when it’s like that, but I was glad I wasn’t back in eighth, ninth, 10th or 11th. A podium is good for us, and we’ll keep working to be a few spots better at Jackson this weekend.”
Sheldon Haudenschild crossed fourth and NASCAR Cup Series star Kyle Larson closed the top five after starting 11th.
Of note, Macedo’s car was able to be repaired in the work area despite nearly hanging in the catchfence. The Jason Johnson Racing driver returned and battled from 23rd to a 14th-place finish.
Logan Schuchart was the overall fast qualifier over the 41-car field with a lap of 10.607 seconds (92.316 mph) around the dirt oval officially measured at .272-miles by World of Outlaws timing officials.
Sweet Reutzel, Schuchart and Macedo won their respective heat races, with Cory Eliason topping the Last Chance Showdown to lead the B-main transfers into the $2,000-to-start feature.
World of Outlaws teams will get one night off before resuming the season Thursday at Jackson (Minn.) Motorplex with the opening night of the AGCO Jackson Nationals.
The finale to the three-night affair on Saturday will pay $50,000 to the winner, but Reutzel put himself in position for an even bigger prize by winning Tuesday’s Huset’s 50.
If Reutzel can sweep both the Huset’s 50 and the Jackson Nationals finale on Saturday, he’ll pocket a $100,000 bonus from The Showdown and boost his earnings to $180,000 for the week.
Is any of that money on Reutzel’s mind at this point?
“Not right now,” he tipped with a smile. “We’re going to focus on celebrating tonight, and then we’ll worry about the [possibility of the] bonus tomorrow when we’re prepping to race at Jackson.”
To view complete race results, advance to the next page.