“I Wanted to Disqualify Him”: Kyle Larson’s High Limit Sprint Car Series Accused of Malpractice by Former Employee

The High Limit Racing Series, co-owned by Kyle Larson, is setting up for a successful second season in 2025. However, their plans have hit rough weather with former technical director, Kevin Nouse, accusing series director Mike Hess of malpractice.

Nouse was fired from his role in June for unknown reasons after just six months in the role. Though he remained silent at the time, Nouse has come out with a series of posts on X over the past couple of days, revealing instances that were violations of the rule book.

He described an incident involving a driver who had won a race with a 1.25″ wicker bill on his top wing. Nouse wanted to disqualify the competitor after discovering the infringement during post-race inspection. But Hess had, allegedly, asked him to ignore it.

“I wanted to disqualify him but the ‘world’s best series director’ told me to let it go & then acted like it never happened, ” wrote Nouse, before listing other examples of infringements that were overlooked.

https://twitter.com/KevinNouse/status/1872678713118404698

“Enforcing the rules and having integrity needs to be just as important as any other thing they do. ‘Don’t bring it back,’ ‘quit looking for that,’ or ‘just let it go’ shouldn’t be in a series director or tech director’s vocabulary,” he told Sportsnaut.

“High Limit Racing believes in a fair and equal playing field”

High Limit Racing responded to the accusations through an official statement.

“High Limit Racing believes in a fair and equal playing field for all competitors. Any claims to the contrary are unjustified. We’re focused on the success of our inaugural international event and continuing to improve the sport of sprint car racing,” read the statement.

The inaugural international event mentioned was an exhibition race weekend in Perth, Australia, from December 28 to 30. Series co-owner Larson participated in it as well.

It is also noteworthy that Hess and Nouse were always considered to be quite the opposites as professionals. It was a given that they were never going to be comfortable working with each other.

However, High Limit Racing Series has faced multiple such questions about its integrity over the past year. And regardless of his standing with Hess, the claims put forward by Nouse are startling. They warrant immediate investigation from Larson and his partner Brad Sweet.