A diverse résumé has become a key component for most of the rising stars in racing.
It’s also common for many of the veterans of the sport to dabble in various divisions outside of their primary focus. However, not many compare to the path that Chris Windom has taken, making him a renaissance man of motorsports.
The 31-year-old has been behind the wheel of a race car for approximately two dozen years and his journey has led to winged sprint car competition.
“I started off in go-karts and moved to micro sprints from there,” he said. “I ran a 410 sprint car when I was 15 years old. I’ve raced USAC midgets, sprint cars, Silver Crown; winged cars with the All Stars and World of Outlaws. I ran a NASCAR Cup Series race at Bristol. I ran Indy Lights at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. I’ve ran ARCA and the NASCAR Truck Series. I think that’s about it.
“I definitely think it helps (running various types of race cars). Any time you’re in the seat of a race car you’re improving your skills. Moving from different disciplines from dirt to asphalt, it helps well round your abilities for being a good race car driver. It helps to not be a one-type-of-car, one-type-of-track race car driver.”
Windom and the Hayward Motorsports team enjoyed a successful non-winged partnership in recent years before making the transition to full-time winged sprint car competition.
“I definitely think the winged stuff will be our focus,” Windom said. “We’re full time with the All Star Circuit of Champions. It’s been some of the toughest racing I’ve ever done.
“I think that’s probably one of the toughest parts is the competition level. It’s really opened my eyes doing it this year,” Windom continued. “Traveling around with the All Stars, racing with the Outlaws or even racing a local show in Pennsylvania, the competition level is through the roof. I felt like on the non-winged side of things you have the five or six guys who are tough to beat. I felt on an off night in the non-winged car I could run in the top 10. If you’re off in a winged car, you’re not making the race.”
Windom made the decision part way through last season that it would be his final year on the non-winged circuit before shifting to winged sprint cars this year.
“I don’t think it’s any secret that winged sprint car racing is the biggest type of dirt racing there is other than maybe late models,” he said. “The attention it gets, the fan level. It’s such a high level. The money is better as well, but you still have to run well. The money is definitely there once you become successful at it. For me, I’d done USAC for so long. I won the Triple Crown. I felt I’d won everything in USAC I wanted to win. Going winged sprint car racing was the next progression that you can do.
“I told my car owner last year about halfway or three quarters of the way through the season I felt this would be my last year and wanted to go to the winged side of things. We built a winged car, but only got to race it twice. I basically said, ‘Do you want to do this with me or not?’
“Fortunately, he wanted to take the step and come with me to do it,” Windom noted. “I’m fortunate to have people like that who are willing to foot the bill. It’s tough for him also because he’s used to winning races every year. He’s been understanding of it and NOS (Energy Drink) has been understanding of it. They know how big of a jump it is.”
Windom is no stranger to success as he captured the USAC Silver Crown championship in 2016, the USAC AMSOIL National Sprint Cars title in 2017 and the USAC NOS Energy Drink National Midget Series championship in 2020.
Windom became only the seventh driver to win the Triple Crown — a championship in all three of the premier USAC divisions — joining Pancho Carter, Tony Stewart, Dave Darland, J.J. Yeley, Jerry Coons Jr. and Tracy Hines.
“I like to keep challenging myself,” said Windom, who has 35 USAC victories across the three national series. “I’ve always liked winged cars. NOS Energy Drink is my primary sponsor and they came on board to give me the opportunity to go winged racing. After I won the Silver Crown and sprint car championships, that’s about when they came on board. I said I wanted to win a midget championship to complete the Triple Crown. They went full time with me in the midget deal. After that I was like, ‘What’s next?’
“I don’t want to jump into something before I feel I’m prepared for it. I felt we did that a little bit this year with the All Stars,” Windom continued. “The first couple of months was a pretty big struggle for us. We talked about maybe just racing our own schedule and racing some easier sprint car races in the Midwest. I felt the best decision was to run with the some of the best guys and that would make us better.”
The struggle early this season yielded to building success during the summer for Windom and the team, which is filled with first-timers to the winged sprint car scene.
“My crew chief is a rookie crew chief, so we’re learning together,” Windom said. “He worked on winged cars but was a crew guy. He knew when we were setting budgets, he gave the owner a good idea of what stuff will be. I think the biggest thing for us is the engine program. It has to be at such a higher level than the non-winged racing. You need to have three, four or maybe five great engines at a time.
“With how high the prices have gotten with fuel and even tires have gone up … it’s hard to gauge it with how high everything has gone up. We’ve spent more money than we wanted to or planned to. In December of last year, I think we had one car and were ordering parts and cars and wings. Now, hopefully, we’ll go into next year with a full slate of stuff and budget out the expenses (more accurately).”
Windom has prided himself and the team on how quickly they have been able to adapt to the challenge of being full-time competitors with the Tezos All Star Circuit of Champions.
“I would say at the start of the year we were a little behind, but now we’ve hit our stride a little bit,” he said. “We have more confidence. I’m happy with where we are at. I feel like we’ve really come along well the last couple of months. We almost won an All Star race in July in New York. I think my goal for this year is to win a winged sprint car race and, hopefully, an All Star race. I think next year, we haven’t completely discussed our plans yet, but I’d assume we’ll go All Star racing again. If we keep progressing the way we have this year, we can be a contender to win the championship next year.
“The ultimate goal is to be full time with the Outlaws, but the numbers are almost close to double to being an outlaw than an All Star. Obviously, budgets are a little different every year depending on how much stuff you tear up or if you blow a few engines,” he added. “If you sit down and run travel costs and hotel nights and tires and fuel, I’d say the Outlaws deal might not be double, but it’ll definitely cost you two- or three-hundred-thousand more.”
While Windom is confident he’s found his stomping grounds within the winged sprint car community for the foreseeable future, he has enjoyed the various routes that delivered rare NASCAR and Indy Lights opportunities.
“I think it was more so just fun to do it,” he said. “I actually got asked to run the Truck Series race this year, but I had to turn it down because we had an All Star race. I’d still do some one-off races like if the Cup Series cars go back to Bristol. NASCAR isn’t something that will be a full-time thing for me. You better be a teenager with a lot of money to start a NASCAR career.”
Windom’s impressive background behind the wheel has led to a unique skillset and an energy to make the most of each opportunity, while pushing to accomplish lofty goals.
The winged sprint car world will likely see that come to fruition as the renaissance man works toward being a consistent front-runner in his newest endeavor.