By Jacob Hord, @HordRaceWatcher
The 2024 High Limit Race at Butler Speedway didn’t go Justin Peck’s way. He led early, but eventually lost the lead on a mid-race restart and lost out on winning the Mace Thomas Classic. Peck wasn’t going to let that happen again in 2025, and he withstood challenges from two of the best in sprint car racing to redeem himself and win the 2025 Mace Thomas Classic at Butler Speedway.
After all preliminary events were completed, it would be Peck and Aaron Reutzel on the front row of the 30 lap feature event, with Brad Sweet, Brenham Crouch, and Rico Abreu completing the top five. The green flag waved in front of a jam-packed grandstands and Peck drove to the early lead over Sweet and Reutzel. Sixth-starting Sye Lynch would be all over Reutzel for third, and would eventually take the spot as Peck gapped Sweet by about a second.
The top three would breakaway from the rest of the field as Peck worked his way into lapped traffic, which would allow Sweet to close the gap into the .300 range.
Sweet would have a look at the lead, but couldn’t make a move on Peck as Peck was trying to navigate some heavy traffic. Meanwhile, Reutzel would get back by Lynch for third. Peck would get by the lapped car of Darin Naida and stretch the lead out a little more.
At the halfway point, Peck had a somewhat clear track ahead of him, but Sweet wasn’t done yet. The lead was hovering around one second, but with ten laps left, Peck was getting into more lapped traffic and the gap started to close.
On lap 23, the traffic ahead of Peck were racing side-by-side. Sweet got a run on Peck in turns one and two, and on lap 24, they were side-by-side for the lead, with Peck leading lap 25 by only .027 seconds. Sweet threw a slider going into turns one and two, and the leaders were again side-by-side going down the backstretch. Sweet ended up leading lap 26 by .034 seconds.
While this battling for the lead was ongoing, Aaron Reutzel was sneaking up on the leaders. On lap 28, Reutzel was able to get by Sweet for the second spot, and the gap to Peck was closing as he was mired in traffic.
The sand in the hourglass ran out for Reutzel, though, and Peck was able to take the Rudeen 26 machine to High Limit Victory Lane for the second time in 2025. Reutzel would settle for second, and Rico Abreu would be credited with third after Sweet was disqualified. More on that soon.
It was great to see Butler Speedway backup their 2024 success with this year’s rendition of the Mace Thomas Classic. The fans showed up and showed out, there was plenty of tailgating, great fan interactions, friendly staff, and unlike my visit in 2016, no monsoons. Butler is certainly on it’s way to becoming one of the top facilities in the region. Constant improvements make for a better experience. It’s safe to say that I’ll be back to Butler in the future.
As for the Brad Sweet DQ, he took the brunt of someone else’s mistake. As I was keeping track of laps in my notebook, we got to the end of the race, and I didn’t see the flagman signal two to go when he should have, or wave the white flag when he should have. What happened was, he waved the white flag when he should have been waving the checkered flag, causing confusion. As the white flag waved, the race was over, but the drivers didn’t know that because they saw the white flag. As Sweet crossed under the white flag in third, his right rear tire blew, and he limped around the track one more time, getting “passed” by other cars in the process until he crossed under the checkered flag, but the race was technically over on the white flag lap. Sweet didn’t realize this, he thinks he sank through the field and didn’t finish third, so he goes off the track and not to the scales. He made it back onto the track, but it was too little, too late, and he got DQ’d and credited with a 25th place finish. It was an unfortunate situation for Sweet, who is now second in points, six markers behind Tyler Courtney.
Hopefully, the DQ doesn’t overshadow how good of a race Butler put on, or take anything else away from the race, because it was a truly great race.