Gustin guns for more USMTS wins

Ryan Gustin has had an impressive season with the United States Modified Touring Series, winning 12 races while becoming one of the most sensational drivers with the prestigious series.

Now comes the real test.

Gustin, the 19-year-old from Marshalltown, Iowa who is in his first year driving for Burrton’s Ed and Cinde Gressel, enters the first race of the The Hunt for the USMTS Casey’s General Stores National Championship tonight at the Great American Dirt Track at the Jetmore Motorplex looking to continue his remarkable year.

Already the youngest winner in series history, Gustin, who reeled off five straight wins earlier in the season, hopes to get off to a quick start tonight in the opener of the 20-race championship schedule.

“Thursday is going to be really big,” Gustin said. “We hope to take over the point lead from the start. We want to be the guy in command the whole time because that would make it so much easier.”

Gustin has made it look easy driving for Gressel.

It’s been a season of unexpected success after Gustin joined Gressel’s operation in March in what started out as a two-car operation with Derby’s Scott Green.

All of Gustin’s success wouldn’t have happened without Joey ‘Joe Bob’ Ciechanowski’s help.

 “Joe Bob came down here to be the crew chief,” Gustin explained. “We’ve always been friends for a long time. He came down here to work for Ed. I basically came down here because Joe Bob came down and he called me up.”

When Green quit the team, that opened the door for Gustin to take over.

Gustin got things going with a win on May 7 at the Hutchinson Raceway Park. His schedule shifted to the USMTS schedule after that.

“The goal for me, Joe and Ed was five wins,” Gustin said. “Now we’ve got 12. It’s been a great year. I was going to have to do it with nothing and now we’ve got everything. Joe Bob has been a great crew chief and we’ve got an excellent crew to go along with it.

“If not for Ed, we’d probably have one or two wins and we’d be struggling to pay the fuel and tire bill to get to the next race. It helps driving for a guy like Ed.”

It also helps that Gustin has a family tree full of racing.

Gustin is a third-generation racer who has a dirt track lineage on both sides of his family. Both of his grandfathers raced while his father, Rick, and mother, Judy, have been instrumental in his success.

Gustin’s siblings, older brothers Richie and Jimmy, have their share of wins while younger sister Jenae is already racing.

“I was more or less born into it,” Gustin said. “It’s something I’ve wanted to do since I was little.”

Gustin started when he was little, racing a go-kart at age 3. He jumped into a B-modified when he was 12 before graduating to an A-modified in 2008.

That first year with the USMTS saw Gustin drive to Victory Lane at Highway 3 Raceway in Allison, Iowa where Gustin became the youngest winner after his triumph at 17 years, 10 months and 13 days old.

Nicknamed ‘The Reaper’, Gustin hopes to slay the competition on his way to the title, which could lead to bigger and higher forms of racing.

“I think every kid my age is thinking about getting into NASCAR,” Gustin said. “But I know that’s a long ways up. You’ve got to know people and have money. I’d be happy running a dirt late model with either the World of Outlaws or Lucas Oil Series, racing for big money. The thing about NASCAR is it’s money and who you know.”

After tonight’s race in Jetmore, the series heads to Humboldt Speedway on Friday and Caney Valley Speedway on Saturday