Chili Bowl winner earns NASCAR K&N Pro Series East ride
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Competing in NASCAR wasn't on Rico Abreu's radar a year ago, but that was before the youngster began racing and winning sprint car races all across the country.
Now, the 22-year-old, fresh off a huge win in Saturday night's Chili Bowl Nationals in Tulsa, Oklahoma, begins preparations for his NASCAR K&N Pro Series East debut next month at New Smyrna (Florida) Speedway.
He is one of five drivers scheduled to compete in the K&N Pro Series for HScott Motorsports with Justin Marks, joining William Byron, J.J. Haley, Scott Heckert and Dalton Sargeant.
"I’m on the same path as a lot of these NASCAR standouts were on." -- Rico Abreu
"Last year it wasn't," Abreu said of the roadmap to NASCAR, "until I had all my success. I set goals last year that I never thought I would achieve, and I achieved them."
Abreu, who began competing in sprint cars in 2011, competed in more than 100 open-wheel races across various series. He posted 26 victories across 410 winged and non-winged sprint cars, 360 winged sprints and USAC midget competition. He captured the 2014 USAC Honda Midget Series national title in November.
"At the end of last year the discussion came up," he said. "The opportunity was there and I said, 'why don’t we give it a shot?' Because I can always come back to sprint car racing if NASCAR doesn't work out or (I'm) not competitive."
With triple-digit starts and much success during each of the past two seasons, Abreu said he believes he can be just as competitive in a stock car as he has proven to be in an open-wheel ride.
"I feel I will be competitive with all the experience I've already gained racing 100 times a year," he said. "I’m on the same path as a lot of these NASCAR standouts were on. I'm pretty confident about all of it; I'm just really excited to see what happens in the next few months."
Those "NASCAR standouts" are well known – Tony Stewart, Jeff Gordon and Kyle Larson, each coming from the open-wheel ranks as well.
It was Larson, the 22-year-old phenom who drives for Chip Ganassi Racing in NASCAR’s Sprint Cup Series, that helped pave the way for Abreu in sprints.
"I always knew he'd probably end up in NASCAR," Larson said Tuesday. "I think he's going to do a really great job. He's winning every big race out there right now and I think he'll take to stock cars well."
And Stewart, the three-time Sprint Cup champion, has already offered to help make sure that there are no snags as Abreu attempts to run the full 14-race K&N Pro Series East schedule while continuing to compete in open-wheel entries.
"I'm planning on racing 120 times this year and as many as I can get in," Abreu said. "I was talking to Tony at the Chili Bowl and I told him there was a conflict where the K&N guys are at Dover and there are three sprint car races at Williams Grove (Pennsylvania.). He said 'don't worry about that; I'll get you there.' So it's pretty cool that I've got Tony behind me on all this and Kyle; it just allows me to race even more than I was already planning."
Crew chief Mardy Lindley, who helped guide Dylan Kwasniewski to six wins and the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East title in '13, will oversee Abreu's No. 98 team.