Rico Abreu wheels his No. 24 ShopRico.com car at Knoxville Raceway while competing at the World of Outlaws Brownells Big Guns Bash. Photo by Trent Gower.
The state of California is usually a sprint car hotbed.
Weekly events and statewide series throughout Golden State provide more than enough competition for drivers. Some even stay in the state and compete for almost the entirety of the racing season.
But when COVID-19 hit, or rather when COVID-19 became political, it forced drivers to head east into America’s heartland. Races in California just weren’t starting back up soon enough for some of the drivers.
Rico Abreu was one of them.
Abreu’s team, and a lot of the successful entries from California, are used to making trips to the Midwest. Big talent will be drawn to big-name races. That’s natural–just not this early in the year.
“My team needs to race,” Abreu said. “We made the trip out here like we do in the summer and support all of these events.”
Abreu was part of the World of Outlaws Return to Racing Invitational event at Knoxville back in May.
Since then, he’s raced nine times with the Outlaws as well as four of the five nights that Knoxville has hosted events.
“It’s been pretty tricky just with the uncertainty in all the scheduling,” Abreu said. “With the Outlaws and the All Stars being full open, it’s been nice to get to those events.”
He wants to try and make it to Knoxville for a decent chunk of the season. His No. 24 ShopRico.com car could be a household name here by the end of the year.
“I think I’m going to hit as many as I can,” Abreu said. “We’ll just see in the next month or so what the schedules look like and go from there.”
In four races at Knoxville, Abreu’s best finish came at the technical Pella Motors/Kraig Ford Season Opener where he finished runner-up to Brian Brown.
It’s a rarity when it’s this late in the season and Abreu hasn’t won somewhere yet, but because of COVID-19, he’s facing star-studded fields nearly everywhere he goes.
“It definitely makes the events really tough,” Abreu said. “We’ve just got to get our stuff a little bit better handling-wise and we’ll be up front at those races.”
On Wednesday he’ll take another stab at it and head to Pennsylvania with the Ollie’s All Stars Circuit of Champions – the series headed by former NASCAR star Tony Stewart.
Before a stop in Bulls Gap, Tennessee, for a pair of races on Friday and Saturday, the All Stars will be taking to Port Royal Speedway for the annual Keith Kauffman Classic.
It’s the 11th event of the 2020 season for the series, which was hijacked as much as any tour by the COVID-19 outbreak.
Abreu has yet to race with the series in 2020, but he has seven career wins with the series including four last season.
He’ll be up against defending champion Aaron Reutzel as well as former Port Royal track champion Brock Zearfoss, who already has a win this year.
The broadcast for the race is scheduled to start at 6:00 p.m. CT. Fans can keep up with the action on FloRacing or by following along with us at @AlwaysRaceDay on Twitter.
| All Star Circuit of Champions Points Standings | ||||
| Position | Driver | Points | Behind | |
| 1 | Aaron Reutzel | 1594 | -0 | |
| 2 | Cory Eliason | 1554 | -40 | |
| 3 | Danny Dietrich | 1534 | -60 | |
| 4 | Brock Zearfoss | 1526 | -68 | |
| 5 | Zeb Wise | 1524 | -70 | |
| 6 | Paul McMahan | 1482 | -112 | |
| 7 | Tony Stewart | 142 | -152 | |
| 8 | Greg Wilson | 1404 | -190 | |
| 9 | Skylar Gee | 1396 | -198 | |
| 10 | Josh Baughman | 1378 | -216 | |