The pedigree suggests its only a matter of time before Spencer Bayston breaks out in a big way driving a winged Sprint Car and CJB Motorsports intends to see that happen during the inaugural High Limit Racing national season in 2024.
Bayston and CJB are coming off back-to-back eighth place finishes in the final World of Outlaws championship with rookie of the year honors in 2022 and five combined victories since joining forces in the summer of 2021.
He is the 2017 USAC National Midget Series champion and a Chili Bowl Midget Nationals Race of Champions and Prelim Night winner.
So in the same spirit it was a matter of time that he would win on the highest Sprint Car stages, doing so in the Brad Doty Classic with Sam McGhee Motorsports in 2021, it feels like a matter of time before Bayston breaks out on the national scene too.
What are the goals and expectations next season?
“I think it’s hard to know or put a number on it,” Bayston told Sportsnaut during the Chili Bowl “For me, ideally, the goal is to put ourselves into a top-five position at the end of the season so we can be in line for a charter.
“I think that can become very valuable for our business, for our owner, and everyone involved.”
Recognizing that Bayston is still early in his development cycle as a winged Sprint racer, he also modestly just wants to keep improving too and whatever shape the stats take, they take.
“The goal would be to run top 5 but the main priority is to press and get better every night,” he said. “I’m still in a learning phase in this sport. There is a long way to go to get to where these other guys are. Learn each and every night and continue to get better. I hope to win a handful of races but keep progressing in every area.”
And from that standpoint, Bayston welcomes the challenge of High Limit because he wants to continue racing against the best, like five-time and reigning champion Brad Sweet every night.
Iron sharpens iron as it were.
“It’s a new fresh opportunity,” Bayston said. “A lot of fresh faces have signed on and combined with some of the familiar faces, we wanted to race with the best group of racers every night, so we’re excited for it.”
The decision just also made business sense for CJB owner Chad Clemens.
“The charter system was introduced and that adds a unique twist to it and something that I haven’t seen in the Sprint Car world,” Bayston said. “I feel like that could turn into something healthy and beneficial for this kind of racing. It was cool to see that.
“High Limit is also something new and exciting. Us a team at CJB, we want to do the thing that makes the most sense for us, financially, scheduling, logistics.
“Brad and Kyle have something really good happening here with the amount of passion they are pouring into this program. I think they see the sky is the limit and will do a lot of cool things, work a little bit more with the teams and around the teams to build their business model, which would be attractive to anyone. We’re excited for it.”
And while things will look somewhat different from the past two and a half years, much will remain the same in that the team plans to hit all the major World of Outlaws sanctioned races on the High Limit off weekends.
Knoxville Nationals
Kings Royal
High Bank Nationals
Jackson Nationals
“It’s not totally that different,” he said. “It’s essentially a different organization with the same goals of putting on the best series, the best drivers on the best race tracks but with the addition of the ability to travel outside and not miss any of the big (World of) Outlaws races. It’s appealing.
“It’s to be expected that there will be some growing pains. It’s a new series. I can’t expect their first year to be flawless. There will be hiccups along the way. Us as a team, and all of our partners, know that and are ready for the challenge and are excited to get started.”
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.