Logan Schuchart won the biggest single-event prize in sprint car history Thursday night by beating Carson Macedo and Brad Sweet for the Eldora Million at Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio. It was a dominant and emotional win for the team owned by Schuchart’s Hall of Fame grandfather Bobby Allen.
Schuchart has come close to some extreme paydays, finishing second in the 2019 Kings Royal and Knoxville (Iowa) Nationals as well as second in the 2021 National Open at Williams Grove Speedway in Mechanicsville, Pennsylvania. Last year, he earned top-fives in the Knoxville Nationals and Kings Royal.
This year, Schuchart won the first race of a two-day show at Eldora with the World of Outlaws Sprint Car in early May and took another victory at Huset’s Speedway in June, proving he likes to perform well on sprint car’s biggest stages.
Schuchart has 37 career Outlaws victories, but none top the Eldora Million.
“This team has come such a long way and I know I say it time and time again, but I hope any kid or person in general can know what I’m feeling right now, to win a race like this,” Schuchart said at FloRacing.com. “If anybody ever tells you you can’t do anything, I know you hear that a lot. There’s lots of nights I sat there thinking, should I do something else? I don’t know if I’m good enough for this. I ran second in every major event and what if I never win one of these big races?”
Schuchart’s night began with a victory in his heat race when he prevailed over Rico Abreau, one of Wednesday night’s feature winners. While Schuchart won his heat by a sizeable margin, it was not easy as he battled a broken power steering pump throughout the event. Once that was fixed between races, Schuchart was untouchable.
“The No. 1S (team of Schuchart) just did a really good job,” second-place Macedo said. “The pace up there was really fast. We were running really hard laps every lap. It seemed like he had a really good balance and did a really great job.”
In a 50-lap race, survival is crucial and it comes in multiple forms. Schuchart was leading on Lap 20 when Aaron Reutzel spun out of a top-five position directly into the path of Kyle Larson who was riding the cushion. Larson flipped as several other cars three more cars piled into to the melee, including Giovanni Scelzi.
🚨 A horrendous “ball of chaos” brings the Eldora Million to a grinding halt! All drivers are okay! #EldoraMillion // @EldoraSpeedway
— FloRacing (@FloRacing) July 14, 2023
📺 https://t.co/zV5FcucOFx pic.twitter.com/5FOtsNabsz
But while Schuchart was nowhere close to the wreck, his brake rotor overheated to the point that Brad Sweet believed it had caught fire.
“It looked like he kind of flamed up for a second under that caution,” Sweet said. “I thought, ‘Oh that might change the outcome of the race.’ But hats off to them. They showed up and came out and executed.
“Honestly, I think Logan had the best car. I thought he was probably the best car all weekend. I knew of he got in front, he’d be hard to pass.”
Under green the rotor cooled and Schuchart cruised to victory lane.
David Gravel finished one position behind Sweet in fourth as the two principal title contenders for the World of Outlaws championship shift their attention to the Knight Before the Kings Royal and the Kings Royal that will be run Friday and Saturday night.
Abreu rounded out the top five. As for Larson, he was credited with 20th.
Results
1. Logan Schuchart, 2. Carson Macedo, 3. Brad Sweet, 4. David Gravel, 5. Rico Abreu, 6. Brian Brown, 7. Michael Kofoid, 8. Donny Schatz, 9. Justin Peck, 10. James McFadden, 11. Brent Marks, 12. CJ Leary, 13. Cory Eliason, 14. Tyler Courtney, 15. Jacob Allen, 16. Justin Whittall, 17. Kyle Reinhardt, 18. Daryn Pittman, 19. Aaron Reutzel, 20. Kyle Larson, 21. Spencer Bayston, 22. Giovanni Scelzi, 23. Lachlan McHugh, 24. Cole Duncan
