Gus Dean Staying the Course in CARS Tour Competition

Gus Dean was a regular in the Championship Auto Racing Series (CARS) X-1R Pro Cup Series prior to the relaunch of the series.  Following that relaunch, the 20-year-old who already had a Super Late Model, elected to run on the Super Late Model side of the new CARS Tour.

For Dean, who hails from South Carolina, running the CARS Tour is about loyalty to a series that he felt was fair to him and the other competitors.

“We ran Super Late Models before we ran in the Pro Cup Series,” Dean said.  “We got a Pro Cup car after that and went with their series for a couple years.  We decided to stick with Jack [McNeally].  Always loved Super Late Models.  We got our Super Late Models again while the Pro Cup Series was still going on just to run some major Super Late Model races.  When Jack made the decision to turn this into a Super tour, we stuck with him.  We love Jack, we love this series and we already had the cars so we decided to put all our attention on the Super Late Models.”

The former Pro Cup Series averaged around nine cars in 2014 while the brand new CARS Tour is averaging 29.25 cars on the Super Late Model side and 30.25 cars on the Late Model Stock Car side.  Dean said he is not surprised by the stellar car counts so far this season.

“Jack’s entire crew are very fair people,” Dean stated.  “The payout is very fair as anybody will tell you.  The caliber of racer that we have here is very high all throughout the field.  You don’t really tear up a lot of stuff week to week.  It’s a Super Late Model tour, there’s going to be some conflict but for the most part, it’s pretty clean, people comeo ut here, have a good time and runfor a decent amount of money.”

Dean made his mark in Pro Cup when he scored a victory at Memphis International Raceway (Tennessee), but so far, in 2015, Dean has yet to score a top-10 finish in the CARS Super Late Model Tour.

“We struggled at Hickory after we got in a little bit of a fender bender,” Dean explained.  “We got back to the shop and realized we bent the rear end a little bit.  The crew has made some awesome gains on the car, changed a lot of stuff on it and got it more towards my liking so I think we’ll be in the running on Saturday night.”

Saturday night’s race at Southern National Motorsports Park, which hosted the inaugural event for the CARS Tour, will be the first time the CARS Tour has returned to a venue for a second date so far.  Despite the teams having run at Southern National back in March, the track has undergone some big changes in between the two races.

There will be a 60 degree temperature difference on Saturday night compared to the race held on March 28^th and the track has, since that race, seen a second groove develop as a result of recent NASCAR Whelen All-American Series (NWAAS) raced held at the track – most recently the Jerry Moody Memorial which featured uncharacteristic side-by-side racing all day long.

“Going from a 28 degree track to a 90 degree track, you’re always going to have major change.  Kenly’s got a lot of grip but it’s known to lose it at times.  Throughout the race, people who can maintain forward drive in the groove will prevail.  The rubber trail is pretty widespread through the corner and there’s a decent amount of grip up top and down low.  Some will work up high, others down low and that should equate to a lot of side-by-side racing.”

RACE22.com will have live, up to the minute coverage of Saturday night’s CARS Tour race on Twitter presented by Five Star Bodies.  In addition to RACE22.com’s complete coverage, the race will be streamed live on RACEFEEDX.com.