By T.J. Buffenbarger
(February 4, 2026) — Greg Wheeler’s career as a sprint car driver turned car owner has taken a lot of different avenues over the past five decades. From running locally around his hometown of Columbia City, Indiana, venturing out on the USAC National Sprint Car Series, the Interstate Racing Association, racing on pavement with the Hoosier Outlaw Sprint Series, then returning to the dirt with his own entry.
After a crash in 2013, Wheeler stepped away from the driver seat, moving into the role of car owner. Having his entries compete in everything local and regional shows to the full Interstate Racing Association tour in 2025, Wheeler will see his familiar #16C entry travel the entire World of Outlaws circuit after partnering with Scotty Theil for the upcoming season.
“It’s always something I wanted to do, so I guess this year is the year we’re doing it,” said Wheeler about going on the road with the Outlaws this season. Scotty (Thiel) and I had talked a little bit, and then one thing just led to another. Scott said he wasn’t getting any younger, and I said that I wasn’t getting any younger either because I’ve been out there for a while. That’s how it all transpired. It was just one thing led to another, and now we’re right in the middle of it.”
The seeds to grow this effort to run the entire World of Outlaws tour were planted during some downtime during an Interstate Racing Association event last season at Jackson Motorplex when Thiel asked Wheeler to borrow a piece of equipment.
“We were at Jackson Motorplex and (Thiel) needed to borrow something,” said Wheeler. The night before we had gotten rained out and I told him to come over because we had the part and I’d let him borrow it.”
“He came over and that that night we started talking about some of the past car owners that he had driven for and some situations that had happened, and I told him he should have come talk to me and you would have never done what you did. Then he started to ask what we were going to do next year and one thing just led to another. We started having conversation of about things that he had to bring, and I told him what I was able to do, and we were able to put enough stuff together financially to get it done”
To prepare for the biggest adventure of Wheeler’s motorsports career, Dennis Wesner, better known as “Oz”, moved up north to help start the process of melding equipment and getting inventory ready to go for the grueling World of Outlaws tour, which Wheeler cited was one of the biggest challenges preparing to go out on the road. The team will also utilize Wheeler’s shop in Indiana throughout the season along with staying with people at times that Thiel has met throughout the years during his travels racing.
“If it wasn’t for Oz putting cars together with Scotty doing a lot of this stuff now it wouldn’t have been possible,” said Wheeler. “Oz was our tire guy; he moved up to Wisconsin to work on helping get the things put together for this year. It’s taken a lot of work to get to this point he’s busted his tail.”
Wheeler also enlisted the services of renowned engine builder Paul Kistler to build and maintain the team’s fleet of engines for the World of Outlaws tour this season.
“We got started early on our motors,” said Wheeler. Our motors are all now Kistler’s. I had talked to Paul (Kistler) earlier and I told him that I wanted to have them put together before the end of December, and he got them done right away for me. We’ve got five motors and we’re hoping that that will be sufficient amount to get us through the season.”
Known for energy well beyond his 78 years of age, Wheeler hopes to be right alongside the team for most or all their effort this year.
“I’d like to go to all of them,” said Wheeler. “There’s some places that I haven’t been to that I’d like to see and be able to say I’ve been there, done that.”
When asked about what needs to happen to consider the season successful, Wheeler hopes to have a strong finish in points and make it too all the events this season.
“I would like to be top 10 if possible. I think that’s realistic. Anything better than that is a plus. All you can do is, is do one night at a time, that’s kind of the way that I have to approach it.”
“It kind of gives me goosebumps, because It’s been such a huge undertaking,” said Wheeler. “We’ve been preparing to be there at the end. And so that’s kind of, if we achieve that at the end of the thing that we’ve accomplished our goal too”
Other Notes…
• This Saturday the Gilmore Car Museum will hold their fourth annual Michigan/Great Lakes Open Wheel Racing Fan Club lecture featuring Barry Marlow from GLSS, Jared Owen from the 500 Sprint Car Tour, engine builder Terry Dowker, and former NASCAR star and current supermodified driver Johnny Benson Jr.
Social period will be from 1:15-2:00 P.M. with the lecture starting at 3:45 P.M. The $20.00 ticket includes full admission to the museum.
• At this point during the off season a majority of the sprint car and supermodified dates for the Great Lakes region are in the Allstar Performance Open Wheel Calendar. The only things we are waiting on at this point are the Attica Raceway Park weekly sprint car schedule and the full Great Lakes Traditional Sprints slate.
Several GLTS dates that have been released by racetracks are on the open wheel calendar. GLTS officials indicate they are just waiting on a handful of Michigan racetracks to finalize their schedules before releasing the GLTS slate.
• Anticipation continues to grow for the Race for the Million series that will make two stops this summer in Michigan at Owosso Speedway on June 3rd and Berlin Raceway on July 25th.
Some of the drivers familiar to Great Lakes area fans that are expected to compete in the opening round of the four-race series at Five Flags Speedway in Pensacola, Florida on April 10th include Jason Blonde, Ryan Litt, Jimmy McCune, and. Anthony McCune.