As one era ends, another begins.

Three days after six-time national Sprint Car champion Brad Sweet announced his retirement from touring competition Sunday at the Kubota High Limit Racing banquet, Kasey Kahne Racing has tapped burgeoning driver Daison Pursley as the team's full-time driver for the 2026 season.

The 21-year-old becomes the new cornerstone for the team owned by Kahne, the former NASCAR Cup star, as the Locust Grove, Okla., native moves over from Pennsylvania-based Buch Motorsports fresh off capturing the 2025 Rookie of the Year honors on the High Limit Racing tour in his first full season driving a winged Sprint Car. 

• Daison Pursley Chasing 4-Crown Nationals History At Eldora Speedway
• Brad Sweet Announces Retirement From Full-Time Sprint Car Racing

"First and foremost, this is a dream come true. This is something that, as a little kid growing up and watching the World of Outlaws and everything, you've seen Brad Sweet and Daryn Pittman and all them winning races left and right. ... It's super cool to now officially be a part of and it's an opportunity of a lifetime to say the least."

Pursley, one of Sprint Car racing's rising superstars having succeeded at every open-wheel level, could make his debut with KKR during Nov. 5-8's World Finals, but "that's still up in the air a little bit" as of Friday's announcement. When Pursley does hit the track with KKR, he'll be aboard the No. 9 entry, not Sweet's No. 49.

"That's super cool as well, too, because my dad when he raced back in the day, he was always No. 9. And when I started racing, my number was 9. The font of my number always had the Kasey Kahne little swoosh through it. Just super cool to look back at all that now it makes a full circle that I'll be getting to drive the No. 9 for KKR."

He'll have big shoes to fill in taking over for Sweet, the future National Sprint Car Hall of Famer who's accrued 106 nationally touring winged victories since he won his first World of Outlaws feature for KKR in 2012.

Last year, Pursley won the USAC National Midget title for CB Industries — a remarkable comeback considering that just three years earlier, a crash at Arizona Speedway broke his neck and C4 vertebra, leaving the then-17-year-old diagnosed as an incomplete quadriplegic, the clinical term for partial paralysis in all four limbs from a cervical spinal cord injury.

Pursley also made select winged 410 Sprint Car starts last year for Deuce 5 Motorsports, getting himself acclimated to racing apart from his upbringing as a wingless driver before becoming Justin Peck's successor at Buch Motorsports this year. He even picked up his first winged 410 victory last May in opening night of Huset's Speedway's Memorial Day doubleheader over Kerry Madsen.

Atop this year's highlights for Pursley is his first High Limit Racing victory Sept. 13 at Lernerville Speedway and four-victory weekend at Eldora Speedway's 4 Crown Nationals — a feat that only Jack Hewitt previously accomplished in 1998 — and USAC sweep of the historic event, something that Hewitt, Kyle Larson (2011) and Logan Seavey (2023) have done.

In total, Pursley's racked up eight victories this year: Three in the wingless Sprint Car, two in USAC's Silver Crown division, one in the midget, one in a 360 Sprint Car and, of course, one on High Limit Racing.

"I've gotten to drive for a lot of great people over my racing career with Keith Kunz in the Midget and Chad Boat in the Midget, and a lot of great teams," Pursley said. "I'm excited to start this new journey in my winged Sprint Car career with KKR and have everyone on board like NAPA Auto Parts, carrying their colors will just be a cherry on top to something I don't think is really gonna set in until we still start doing it a few times.

"Excited to go out there and prove to everyone that the winged Sprint Car stuff is what I wanna do and that I'm here to stay and continue to try to improve and get good at."