Since his first big-stage start at Knoxville Raceway in 2013, Rico Abreu has wanted nothing more than to win one of the historic track’s coveted marquee races. Fast forward to 2025, and his time to hoist the big trophy has finally come.
Abreu, 33, of St. Helena, CA, outdueled the talents of Kyle Larson Saturday night, retaking the lead from the NASCAR Cup Series star on the final restart in the closing laps to win the 35th running of the Xtream powered by Mediacom 360 Knoxville Nationals presented by Great Southern Bank.
An entrant of the 410 Sprint Car NOS Energy Drink Knoxville Nationals presented by Casey’s nearly every season since his first in 2013, Abreu has worked each time to better his skills on the 1/2-mile oval in an effort to win the world’s most prestigious open-wheel race on dirt. This year, he made it a point to enter the 360 version of the event — for the second time in his career — to get additional laps on the track before competing in the 410 Sprint Car crown jewel next week.
After leading 28 of the 30 Feature laps on Saturday, Abreu proved to both himself and the motorsports world that he’s now capable of winning the big ones at The Sprint Car Capital of the World.
“It’s kind of, hopefully, the turning point of just the consistency of my career and the hard work that we’ve put in as a team,” Abreu said. “I know we’ve made it a point to come here the last few years and have been close at 410 Nationals the last two years where the effort has really (been) seen on my end of that ability that I think I have what it takes to win the Nationals.”
Paired with the preliminary Feature win he banked Friday night, Abreu has now won a total of five main events in the seven starts he’s made at Knoxville in 2025. The win also counts as the fourth of his career with the American Sprint Car Series and was worth a grand total of $34,000 — $20,000 for the win and an additional $14,000 for 28 total laps led.
Starting from the pole, Abreu controlled the first two-thirds of the race, leading the field around nearly unchallenged for the first 22 laps. Then came a critical restart after a caution period on Lap 23.
Fourth-starting Larson had climbed to the runner-up spot and restarted directly behind Abreu. Larson got a great jump on the start, allowing him to carry great momentum through Turns 1 and 2 in the top groove. With extra speed through Turns 3 and 4, Larson zoomed past Abreu on the outside and took the lead as they crossed the start/finish line to complete Lap 23.
“My car just kept getting a little bit tighter and tighter as we got those restarts,” Abreu said. “I knew that I wanted to cover the bottom lane just to block [Larson’s] run if he was taking off with me. I didn’t really know how he was taking off. I got tight that one corner and it allowed him to get wound-up and get ahead of me.”
“I was able to, honestly, just take off before he did on that one restart,” Larson said. “I was to his outside, and [my engine] was stumbling, and [Abreu] took off. I was close enough to be able to be there when he missed the grip there a little bit in (Turn) 2 and then got outside of him and ran a decent 3 and 4.
“I was just hoping it would stay green from then on because I knew I’d be in trouble with a caution.”
But then, the caution flag was displayed once more. The field restacked, and it was then Abreu’s turn to try and find a way around Larson.
It took only one set of turns for Abreu to do so, throwing a slidejob on Larson in Turns 1 and 2 to retake the lead and lead the field back around to the checkered flag.
“I tried to just take off with him,” Abreu said. “The restart before that, I got super tight on the entry to (Turn) 1 and it allowed [Kyle] to get to my right-rear. I had to slow the pace down so much to not miss the grip with how fine the moisture was in 1 and 2. I just knew that it was so difficult to get it wound-up down there.”
Over the past several seasons, Abreu has not been shy in giving credit to crew chief Ricky Warner for his rise to national Sprint Car stardom. The National Sprint Car Hall-of-Fame Inductee has won multiple 410 Knoxville Nationals with driver Donny Schatz and now has a 360 Nationals title to match.
“I told Ricky at the beginning of this year that I’d like to run this race,” Abreu said. “I know it’s an important one for him, and now one that he can knock off his list of accomplishments.”
Larson crossed the finish line second, topping his previous best 360 Nationals finish of third in 2013.
Indiana racer Parker Price-Miller completed the podium with a third-place finish for the second-straight night behind the wheel of the Indy Race Parts No. 71P. Oklahoma native Ryan Timms finished in the Shane Liebig-owned No. 10 while Justin Peck completed the top five, driving the Rudeen Racing No. 26.
UP NEXT
The American Sprint Car Series returns to action Friday–Saturday, Aug 15–16, at WaKeeney Speedway and El Paso County Raceway.
Tickets for both events will be sold at the track on race day. If you can’t be there, stream every lap live on DIRTVision.
FEATURE RESULTS (view full results)
Feature (30 Laps): 1. 24R-Rico Abreu[1]; 2. 57-Kyle Larson[4]; 3. 71P-Parker Price Miller[2]; 4. 10-Ryan Timms[5]; 5. 26-Justin Peck[6]; 6. 27-Carson McCarl[3]; 7. 88-Austin McCarl[11]; 8. 7BC-Giovanni Scelzi[17]; 9. 21T-James McFadden[9]; 10. 21-Brian Brown[16]; 11. 87-Justin Sanders[8]; 12. 9R-Chase Randall[13]; 13. 40G-Clint Garner[10]; 14. 55-Kerry Madsen[22]; 15. 24-Terry McCarl[15]; 16. 4-Cameron Martin[12]; 17. 13-Daison Pursley[21]; 18. 63-JJ Hickle[14]; 19. 6-Dustin Selvage[23]; 20. 27B-Jake Bubak[24]; 21. 40-Ryan Leavitt[19]; 22. 44-Chris Martin[7]; 23. 18T-Tanner Holmes[20]; 24. 3P-Sawyer Phillips[18]
