Behind Anthony Macri’s ascent as a High Limit Racing championship contender in light of Tuesday’s series win at 34 Raceway is a work of transformation. The nation’s winningest Sprint Car driver from a year ago just looks different than the 2019 — or even ‘20 — version of himself.

For starters, go no further than his outward image: from 205 pounds and a clean-shaven face to the lightest he’s weighed at 175 pounds with an unshaven, scruffier appearance. Intangibly speaking, Macri’s noticed a deeper change.

“I never thought me and being patient and very controlling on the bottom — a narrow bottom, if that — would be in the same sentence,” Macri said after his $23,023 win, the third-richest of his career.

Up until three years ago, the Dillsburg, Pa., native never won more than twice in a single season. Even when a combined 20 wins came in 2020 and ’21 — 10 being at Port Royal (Pa.) Speedway — Macri’s one-dimensional ways of selling out around the highest part of any racetrack made it clear that approach wouldn’t travel well outside Pennsylvania’s big half-miles.

“I’ve learned a lot over the last year and a half, and all of it has been important,” said Macri, who showcased his improved self on Tuesday, where he ran down and passed Buddy Kofoid with eight laps remaining while holding off Kyle Larson’s last-lap bid.

“Patience has become a big thing,” Macri continued. “Controlling the race, knowing when to push and when not to push, and all that stuff is probably the biggest thing I’ve learned over the last year and a half.”

Done this a time or two with @AnthonyMacri7 back in PA.

Now it’s a $23,023 victory on the @HighLimitRacing tour at @34Raceway in Burlington, Iowa, a place Macri had never seen before.

He breaks down the big win & also how his experience at @WilliamsGrove helped in traffic. pic.twitter.com/Wlk8WHPeDR

— Kyle McFadden (@ByKyleMcFadden) April 26, 2023

As for any progression, Macri’s arrival to where he is now — a High Limit Racing winner three races into series history — has developed in stages. When he became a full-time Sprint Car racer in 2017, he sought consistency. Expectations weren’t lofty as he won sparingly: just four times in three years.

The height of the COVID-19 pandemic is when Macri’s trajectory changed for good. With most of Pennsylvania’s racetracks shutdown during the 2020 months of April, May and June, Macri had little choice but to take his unproven self on the road for the first time, against fields that typically drew more than 50 cars nonetheless.

Once he returned to Port Royal that June 14 in an overnight drive from Knoxville (Iowa) Raceway’s World of Outlaws event where he finished 15th amid a 53-car field, so began his steady rise. Macri won four straight races at the Port Royal half-mile, including his first feature victory with the All Star Circuit of Champions over Larson, to account for a nine-win 2020 season.

In 2021, he won 11 times. Last year, his 24 victories in a 410 led the nation. Eight of those wins were with the All Star Circuit of Champions, led by the $29,000 Weikert Memorial and $60,000 Tuscarora 50. Two came in a sweep of the World of Outlaws at Port Royal last October.

Now, being one point behind Larson and Tyler Courtney in the High Limit standings, Macri thinks he has what it takes to win the series championship.

“I’d like to say it’s not out of the picture,” Macri said. “But we still have a couple more tracks we haven’t been to that we have to go to. Obviously we have to go into them with the mindset of trying our hardest and do our best, and hopefully we get through those new tracks that might be a challenge.”

Staying along the lines of noticeable change, Macri’s race team is internally different than year’s past, too.

Joe Mooney, a key part of Brad Sweet’s run at four-straight World of Outlaws titles, is in his first full season as Macri’s crew chief. Macri’s longest tenured crew chief, Jimmy Shuttlesworth, left the team last summer after three seasons to start his own Pennsylvania-based team with Devon Borden.

While Mooney’s never held the position of crew chief, he’s more than qualified for the job given his experience to navigate racing on the road.

“Everything’s different outside of PA. (Joe) knows how to change the car throughout the night at different tracks because he’s been to these tracks so much,” Macri said. "We’ve had speed this year so far. It just seems like, at the end of the night, we can’t get the job done. We’re obviously working hard on trying to fix that.

“Some of it’s me and not being able to conserve with the new tires as much as I was able to conserve with the old ones,” Macri added. “It’s a combination. And we’re starting to get our combination figured out.”

VIDEO: Highlights From Tuesday's High Limit Feature At 34

Mooney’s always wanted to crew chief. Working with Sweet at Kasey Kahne Racing, he “had to figure out if I could handle being a crew chief, or try to work my way up the totem pole.”

“Obviously, at KKR, Eric (Prutzman) isn’t going anywhere. I learned a lot from him,” said Mooney, who also worked with Shark Racing in 2017 and ‘18. “I owe a lot to him, how to run a team, everything with the race car. It’s been a goal once I came on the road and figured out how much I like this. Me becoming a crew chief was always the end goal."

“Even back to the days of Shark Racing for giving me an opportunity on the road," Mooney added. "Bobby Allen is old-school but a very, very smart man. Had a good year and a half with those guys. But, then again, that was the end goal there, trying to move up the ladder. So I moved to KKR with Brad, Kasey (Kahne) … a lot of good people I’ve been surrounded by.”

Living near Macri’s Dillsburg establishment in Lehighton, Pa., makes his first crew chief job even sweeter.

“Honestly, this all made perfect sense,” Mooney said. “A good, young driver. Good equipment. An owner who’s going to let us race wherever and whenever we want.”

Macri said Mooney has taken his race program and “turned it 180,” adding that “this is the most prepared I’ve been going into a season, as far as cars and parts … organization and everything.”

“Organization and preparation is there,” Macri added. “Now it’s the battle of being at the racetrack and making the right calls and everything as far as that.”

Macri put a little bit of everything he’s learned along the way into practice on Tuesday, like exercising the discipline he’s formed as a racer through his experience at Pennsylvania’s Williams Grove Speedway.

“Williams Grove is a good example of how you have to slow it down so much to hit the bottom in the corners and the speed you’re carrying into the corners,” Macri said. "It was a really technical bottom. I don’t know. It’s still setting in. I’m sure it’s going to take a day or two to fully set in. It honesty feels pretty badass to come outside of PA, at tracks we haven’t been to and I’ve never seen other than a video I watched on the way here today. It feels really rewarding with all the handwork we’ve been putting in. It feels incredible.”