Rico Abreu is at the pinnacle of sprint car racing. He is the current High Limit driver and owner’s championship leader. He has also won nine races on the tour and 16 overall Winged 410 victories in 56 starts. What is more, he is the second-highest winner in sprint car racing with 38 trophies against David Gravel’s 44. But when it came to partnering with Tony Stewart, Abreu saw a new door opening.

Tony Stewart’s sprint racing operation suffered a major blow earlier this year. For 18 years, it was affiliated with Donny Schatz, comprising the most successful partnership that the field has ever seen. But 10 World of Outlaws championships and many other laurels fizzled out in August. Now, Stewart is looking forward to a new chapter – and so is Rico Abreu.

Rico Abreu counts his blessings

The big announcement came just two days ago, and both parties are pumped. Tony Stewart found a good reason to retain his sprint racing operation, merging it with Rico Abreu’s family enterprise. The three-time Cup Series champion is moving from World of Outlaws to High Limit in the process. At the same time, Abreu is bringing his own assets to TSR. Besides being a brilliant marketer himself, Abreu also has a fascinating team dynamic. Crew chief Ricky Warner, who spearheaded 10 World of Outlaws championships and 10 Knoxville Nationals with Schatz earlier, is coming with Abreu. So are car chief Zack Middlebrooks and tire specialist Brady Forbrook.

This three-member team’s movement is all worth it for Rico Abreu. He said in a recent Dale Jr Download episode, “It’s just a mega opportunity for me to race for a top-tier team that’s a championship-molded team.” After years of experience, Abreu prioritizes his team. He continued, “I just realized it takes an army of people to get a driver to the next level in this industry. I started to really understand the process of the sport, where you need to be in position to be a successful race car driver. And I kept pushing back to sprint car racing and how much I love sprint car racing and the people and the control I had with the three employees that I have working on my car, no matter what year it was.”

Rico Abreu and Tony Stewart have been in conversation for the past ten years. And Abreu shed light on how they finally reached a common ground. “I called Tony one day, and I just said like, why don’t we just simplify this and we um you know we just bring figure out how to get me over to your race team to um continue to have it operate at a high level…I feel like I could bring that positive energy into an establishment that was exciting, and um, I was ready to take that next step in my career. To align myself with a brand as big as Tony Stewart’s is quite amazing for me to allow our partners to be a part of that.”

Tony Stewart and Rico Abreu are launching a new chapter in their professional journeys. However, their bond goes beyond just the racetrack.

Cherishing a blossoming friendship

A bond grows sweeter when each party recognizes their strengths and weaknesses. Rico Abreu has a condition, due to which he is only 4 feet 4 inches tall and weighs 95 pounds. Born with achondroplasia, a disease that limits bone growth, Abreu is two-thirds as tall and two-thirds as heavy as all his competitors. But none of them seem to care. And someone who especially does not care in his professional realm is Tony Stewart. The friendship between the two has been in place since the Chili Bowl Midget Nationals in 2012. So he countered the usual reputation that ‘Smoke’ entertains among most people. “People see the other side of Tony Stewart,” Abreu said. “The part of him that is a gruff, hard a*s, but all I’ve ever seen from Tony is kindness.”

Rico Abreu expanded on the bountiful bond that he has cherished with Stewart for all these years. “He always treated me with respect. He respected me as a racer. I haven’t always had confidence, as a little person, believing that I fit in here, but he always made me feel like I belonged. I learned a lot about leadership from Tony. And above all else, when we got done doing (Dale Jr. Download), I just sent him a thank you text for all of that because I don’t know that I would have made it without people like him who made me feel welcome here in the first place.”

Evidently, Rico Abreu is enthusiastically entering a new phase in his racing life. As he joins hands with Tony Stewart, we can only wait and see the wonders the duo will bring!