When racing resumed, Abreu could do nothing with Sweet, who rocketed away on the restart to a one-second advantage and stretched his legs in clean track. Sweet’s speed, combined with a fierce challenge for second by Cory Eliason, meant that by the lap 20 benchmark the margin was a second and a quarter.
Five laps later, as the field crossed the halfway point, the lead for Sweet was a second and a half over Abreu, Sheldon Haudenschild, Eliason and fast qualifier Andy Forsberg.
As Sweet continued to lead, Haudenschild began gaining on Abreu, making the move for second on lap 28 before Abreu crossed him over and retook the spot a lap later. That, however, let Sweet move the needle out to 2.1 seconds before Sweet returned to traffic and had to deal with a hard-charging Abreu in the closing stages.
With 15 laps to go, Abreu had trimmed the gap down to two-thirds of a second and a circuit later, he was within three car lengths of the NAPA Auto Parts No. 49 in his quest for the victory as Eliason and Haudenschild made it a four-way fight at the front of the field.
Inside of 10 laps remaining, however, Sweet began to pull away one more time. He worked traffic to perfection and, despite Abreu’s best efforts as the road began to clear, Sweet used the cushion to hang on to the lead and appeared to be gone into the wind before mass chaos broke out on the final lap.
Jacob Allen got the worst end of a multi-car incident, getting upside down on the outside of turns one and two as D.J. Netto and Scott Bogucki also tangled at the exit of the corner.
Abreu and Haudenschild came together in turn four just prior to the accident on the other end of the speedway, with Abreu forced to retire due to broken steering less than a lap away from the finish.
That left Haudenschild to duel with Sweet on the two-lap overtime dash, but Haudenschild stumbled and could do nothing with the California native in the battle for the race win.
“I didn’t know if I had anything for Brad, but I knew I had to get a good jump (on the restart) and I didn’t,” noted Haudenschild. “I didn’t have a chance to slide him. I thought about following him, but he ripped it so well on the top that I wasn’t making any ground up. He did a great job … hopefully the fans enjoyed the show, because I had a blast.
“Running with Brad and Rico, you can’t make any mistakes and we definitely made a few that kept us from challenging better. We’ll look forward to Calistoga and see what we can do there.”
Local California veteran Andy Forsberg completed the podium, followed by Tim Kaeding and Cory Eliason.
Tanner Thorson, Daryn Pittman, Logan Schuchart, Shane Golobic and World of Outlaws point leader Donny Schatz were the remainder of the top 10.
For full results, advance to the next page.
