Four of eight winners, including last year’s champion Brad Sweet, through the first 15 races of the 2023 World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series have multiple victories heading into the early May mile-marker known as #LetsRaceTwo at Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio, but points’ leader Carson Macedo has only one. The irony is that Macedo led the Outlaws in wins last year with 11 to champion Brad Sweet’s five, which ranked fourth in the series.
Macedo climbed his way to the top this season with a combination of strength and consistency, finishing in the top 10 in every race and in the top five two-thirds of the time. Both of Macedo’s marks lead the league, with the drivers second and third in the standings sharing his top-five tally of 10.
But by the time the #LetsRaceTwo doubleheader rolls around on May 5-6, two months will have passed since Macedo’s last victory. That win came in another doubleheader at Volusia Speedway Park in Barberville, Florida on March 5. Given Sweet’s record from 2022, Macedo likely needs to increase his winning percentage if he wants to maintain his lead. Between now and the World of Outlaws World Finals, 66 races remain, which gives Sweet, who trails by only 12 points, and David Gravel (-48) ample opportunity to close the gap.
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Each of the top three drivers have a reason to expect success on the half-mile Eldora Speedway. In his last 10 races there, Macedo earned two victories, five podiums and an average finish of 4.4.
Sweet has two wins at Eldora, including Kings Royals in 2013 and 2019. His 2019 victory was the last time Sweet found Victory Lane at Eldora, but he came close last July in the Knight Before the Kings Royal with a third-place finish to David Gravel and Rico Abreau.
For Gravel, that was one of two wins in the four-race stand at Eldora last year. Four of Gravel’s 80 wins have come on this course.
There is also a fair likelihood that the #LetsRaceTwo doubleheader will produce different winners in the doubleheader. No one has won back-to-back in the last 16 Eldora races. Abreu is the most recent winner there with his BeFour The Crowns Showdown victory and will have the first shot at doubling down. Sweet and Macedo also finished in the top five that weekend. Abreu has two wins already this year, at Lincoln Speedway in Abbottstown, Pennsylvania and 81 Speedway in Park City, Kansas.
Should Abreu win again, it will be the most productive of his Outlaw career. Abreu scored his pair of wins in only eight starts.