LAS VEGAS — Veteran USAC racer C.J. Leary will drive Bryan Gossel’s familiar No. 6g sprint car in the Nov. 14-16 BITNILE.com Open Wheel Showdown at The Bullring at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
The move was necessitated as Gossel continues to nurse an injury sustained in a racing accident this summer.
Leary, 28, is no stranger to pavement sprint car racing, although the Open Wheel Showdown will be his first attempt at winged asphalt sprint car racing.
Leary has a USAC Silver Crown pavement victory at Wisconsin’s Madison Int’l Speedway on his resume and a third-place finish in the Little 500 the same season.
This past season Leary was particularly impressive competing on the pavement with the USAC Silver Crown Series. In six starts he never finished worse than ninth and had a runner-up finish and two third-place finishes.
“This will actually be my first time in a winged pavement sprint car,” commented Leary. “I was at the World Finals at Charlotte on Wednesday night when Bryan Gossel called. I drove his Silver Crown car at IRP earlier this year. We’ve become friends. He told me he hadn’t fully recovered from his sprint car accident and needed someone to fill in for him in Las Vegas. He asked if I was interested.
“This will obviously be a good race to hit. There’s a lot of money on the line and Bryan’s got good equipment. We should be a good pairing. We ran well together at IRP in the Silver Crown car. We mesh well together and I’m looking forward to it.”
The biggest adjustment to winged pavement sprint car racing is dirty air. But the 2019 USAC National Sprint Car Series champion feels he’ll be just fine due to his many laps in dirt winged 410 sprint car racing recently.
“I’ve been running winged sprint cars probably 10-25 times a year the last handful of years,” Leary said. “The dirty air is the biggest obstacle to overcome. With winged cars everything happens faster. The biggest thing for me will be learning where to put the wing board and racing around guys I’ve never raced with before. There’s a lot of trust racing.”
It will be Leary’s first race at The Bullring as he vies for the $50,000 top prize in the Open Wheel Showdown.
“This will be a new track for me,” Leary said. “I’ve never seen or been to the Bullring at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. There are so many unknowns for me. We will have plenty of practice on Thursday and I should get up to speed quickly. Bryan said he ran fifth in the race last year so we should have a good baseline to start off with.”