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Column By: MATT SKIPPER / WORLD OF OUTLAWS – BEDFORD, PA – Ryan Gustin has gone to “infinity and beyond” since joining Cooney Motorsports for the 2024 season, currently riding a prosperous wave of momentum into one of his favorite weekends.
Through the first half of the 2024 World of Outlaws CASE Construction Equipment Late Models season, the Marshalltown, IA driver has picked up two Feature wins – one at Mississippi Thunder Speedway and another at Deer Creek Speedway. He’s also finished inside the top-10 in 11 of the last 15 Series events.
He’ll try to expand upon that during the Series’ second Pennsylvania-Ohio weekend of the season with stops at Bedford Speedway for the Billy Winn Classic on Thursday, July 11, and Sharon Speedway on Friday-Saturday, July 12-13.
Bedford will be a new track for “The Reaper,” but Sharon has become one of his best tracks over the past two years. After a wheel-to-wheel duel with Kyle Larson resulted in a runner-up finish in 2021, Gustin has won a Series race at Sharon the past two years.
“Sharon Speedway is one of my favorite tracks in the country,” Gustin said. “Anytime we go to Sharon, I got a lot of friends that make it feel like home. The promoter and the family out there welcome us with open arms. It makes you feel really good. On top of that, they have one of the best racetracks in the country, in my opinion. It’s always smooth, slick, you can race from top to bottom. Anytime I’ve been there, it’s never been one-lane. It’s one of the better tracks we go to, and I’ve only finished outside of the top three once since I’ve raced there. It’ll be fun to go back.”
This year, however, he’ll have a new chassis that’s yet to run at the track.
Gustin has driven three different dirt Late Model chassis since November 2023, most recently switching to the Wells Motorsports’ Infinity Chassis in April – the most successful of the three, so far. Since working with Eric Wells and Brandon Overton, who also runs an Infinity Chassis, Gustin has scored five wins with the new frame.
“It’s been great to work with Eric Wells, Brandon Overton and all their guys,” Gustin said. “It’s been an open notebook between Brandon and I, we’re kind of opposites on a lot of things. What works for me doesn’t work for him. But I feel like we learn from each other about the car. With Eric, anything we want changed, he can do it the way he wants. So, it’s been working out well for us.”
After a mixed bag of results in the first quarter of the season, he flexed the power of the Infinity Chassis during the Heartland Grand Tour by finishing inside the top five in half of the Tour’s races, including a 0.009 second win over Nick Hoffman at Deer Creek Speedway.
“I feel like we’ve had a really fast car the last two months, we just haven’t had the results to show it,” Gustin said. “We’ve been battling some gremlins here and there, just stuff out of our control happening, but we’ve been in the hunt. The confidence is very high right now and I feel like we’ll be a force to be reckoned with to come.”
Watch Gustin chase his third win of the season behind the wheel of his No.19R Late Model at Bedford Speedway on Thursday, July 11 before traveling to Sharon Speedway in Ohio on Friday-Saturday, July 12-13.
In addition to the on-track action, Sharon Speedway will feature several off-track activities for fans on Saturday, including a cornhole tournament at noon (ET), water games in the campground on 2 p.m. and an autograph session at 4:30 p.m.