By T.J. Buffenbarger
Knoxville, IA — (August 13, 2015) — Bryan Clauson and Jonathan Byrd’s Racing announced on Thursday at the Knoxville Nationals they have created a program with Cancer Centers of America to race over 200 times in 2016. The “Chasing 200 tour: Circular Insanity” will involve winged 410 sprint car racing, non-wing sprint cars, midget cars, and Bryan’s Indianapolis 500 effort.
The 100th running of the Indianapolis 500 is the centerpiece of Clauson’s ambitious effort along with approximately 105 winged sprint car races with Matt Wood’s team. In addition Clauson will drive the BCI/Dooling Machine non-wing sprint car, Dooling Machine/BH Contractors midget car, Mike Martin’s non-wing sprint car in Arizona, along with potential Silver Crown and midget car races in New Zealand.
“With a lot of the teams I have been running for it will start January 1 in New Zealand and likely will end based on seasons past December 30th in New Zealand. It’s over 100 winged races, 30-40 midget races, 40-50 non-wing races, and sprinkling in some of the other stuff. Its kind of a crazy idea I had and took shape with David (Byrd) in Las Vegas, which is kind of funny because neither of us drink, we talked it over and tried to shape this program with the Cancer Treatment Center of America, Matt (Wood) and his partners, and some of the other teams partners and figured out how we could create this brand that not only brings a major sponsor to short track racing but ties it into things we have done over the years.”
Even more remarkable is Clauson is focusing two weeks on the Indianapolis 500 with no short track racing other than doing the double at Indianapolis and Kokomo Speedway that night.
David Byrd, whose father fielded midget cars and sponsored Indianapolis efforts for USAC champion Rich Vogler, is also excited about the endeavor.
“Nearly a year ago, Bryan told me that he had always dreamed of running a 200 race schedule. In fact, he prefaced it by saying that it was crazy. I told him I like crazy,” said Byrd in a statement. “We went to work on putting all the pieces and partners together, and now here we are today turning dreams into reality. I can’t thank Matt Wood, Joe Dooling, Mike Martin, and Tim Clauson enough for joining in the insanity, and I couldn’t be more excited to partnering with so many qualify people and teams, and extending the Johnathan Byrd’s Racing and Cancer Treatment Centers of America program and partnership in this way.