Anthony Macri won the second High Limit Sprint Car Series race of 2023 at 34 Raceway Tuesday night on the 0.375-mile dirt track in West Burlington, Iowa. In three High Limit races, there have been three different victors with Michael “Buddy” Kofoid winning last year’s inaugural race at Lincoln Park Speedway in Putnamville, Indiana and Giovanni Scelzi taking the checkers a at Lakeside Speedway in Kansas City, Kansas two weeks ago.
It took a while for the drivers to find their rhythm with multiple cautions in the first half of the race, including a hard hit for Kasey Kahne when he centerpunched Blake Hahn after that driver spun from contact with Macri. They were racing for a top-five position with Kyle Larson at the time of the incident.
As the laps slowly ran down, the abortive starts also allowed the challengers to take the measure of the competition and momentarily stalled Larson’s forward momentum.
MORE: Giovanni Scelzi wins High Limits season opener at Lakeside Speedway
With 17 to go, the drivers finally stopped crashing and Macri showed the earlier contact with Kahne did not hurt his car. He grabbed the lead from Kofoid with Larson following him through a few laps later. Kofoid would continue to drop through the field and ultimately finished seventh.
Larson caught Macri on the white flag lap and with time running out, made a bold move to the outside. Larson jumped the cushion in Turn 1 and gave up the second position to Zeb Wise.
Larson held on to finish third.
The last time Larson was at 34 Raceway, Larson won an All Star Circuit of Champions race in 2020. That was one of 14 All Star wins on during his suspension from NASCAR and part of an eight-race winning streak with them. Larson’s bid for a perfect streak of wins was unsuccessful, but he is two-for-two in regard to top-fives.
MORE: Kyle Larson wins in seven divisions at Eldora Speedway
Brent Marks in fourth and Tyler Courtney rounded out the top five. The win for Macri elevates him to third in the High Limit points’ standings, one point behind the leaders.
Larson and Courtney are tied for first in the points’ standings in the series that is partly owned by Larson.
The race was also notable in that it will cost Hendrick Motorsports another Cup driver for three to four weeks. Two weeks after Chase Elliott returned to action following a broken leg suffered in a snowboarding accident, Alex Bowman fractured a vertebra in a crash during the C Main. Bowman was battling for second in that race when he made contact with Conner Morrell. Both drivers flipped violently, but they got out of their cars under their own power.
A Feature 1 (35 Laps): 1. 39M-Anthony Macri[3]; 2. 26-Zeb Wise[11]; 3. 57-Kyle Larson[10]; 4. 19-Brent Marks[1]; 5. 7BC-Tyler Courtney[13]; 6. 24-Rico Abreu[9]; 7. 11-Michael Kofoid[2]; 8. 39-Justin Sanders[6]; 9. 21-Brian Brown[21]; 10. 29-Parker Price Miller[22]; 11. 8-Aaron Reutzel[12]; 12. 25-Scott Bogucki[16]; 13. 21H-Brady Bacon[14]; 14. 88-Austin McCarl[17]; 15. 9-Chase Randall[4]; 16. 14-Cole Macedo[19]; 17. 55-Hunter Schuerenberg[20]; 18. 15H-Sam Hafertepe Jr[15]; 19. 48-Danny Dietrich[24]; 20. 10-Paulie Colagiovanni[27]; 21. 71-Cory Eliason[25]; 22. 3Z-Brock Zearfoss[7]; 23. 13-Justin Peck[8]; 24. 17B-Bill Balog[18]; 25. 52-Blake Hahn[5]; 26. 9K-Kasey Kahne[26]; 27. 50-Paul Nienhiser[23]
🚨 @Alex_Bowman and Conner Morrell go for big rides at @34Raceway! Both drivers out of their cars under their own power @HighLimitRacing pic.twitter.com/avR7J4nbfI
— FloRacing (@FloRacing) April 26, 2023