Approaching Year Six as a full-time 410 Sprint Car racer, Spencer Bayston has made a lot of stops from the Indy Race Parts 71, to Roth Motorsports, to full-time runs at CJB and Jason Meyers Racing in pursuit of a home.
That is frequently the first step in a championship caliber career — meshing various approaches and personality types into one figurative well-oiled machine. For a variety of reasons, Bayston hasn’t found that yet, but seemingly everyone in the industry believes in the potential, which is what led him to Stenhouse Jr. Marshall Racing for the 2026 World of Outlaws season.
“Kind of jumping around into a handful of different cars the past few years, not every scenario is going to be the perfect scenario,” Bayston told Motorsport.com on Thursday. “The teams I’ve been a part of, we’ve had some success but obviously some struggles too, and some of the teams I’ve driven for have had the same story, in that they’ve won some races but struggled in other races.
“For me, I think it’s come down to me wanting or requiring a certain feel, what I want the car to be able to do and if I can find that or not. Ultimately, that’s where I think my time with CJB started to dwindle, that we were starting to venture into the unknown when it comes to set-ups.
“So then I get into the (Works Limited) car or the (Tarlton) 21 and things just click. They handled and drove exactly how I wanted them to right off the bat without me having to say a word and it showed in the speed we had.”
So Richard and Jennifer Marshall, plus Ricky Stenhouse Jr., they all saw that potential and believe there is something to unlock there and want to do it in the No. 17 with crew chief Kyle Pruitt.
“Spencer wasn’t going to take a job that was just going to have him on the road,” Stenhouse said. “It had to be a good fit. Even before he said yes to us, he needed to sit down with our crew chief and talk to him, and vetted the whole process.
“He believes strongly in our process and so does NOS Energy Drink. We’ve been fast since we added Kyle as our crew chief. I felt like there was an uptick in performance and consistency, the way it looks going around the race track, so I’m happy with where the team is.
“I am so happy that we added Kyle because within a day or two, we were ordering parts and selling things, and making sure we had what we needed to do things his way.”
Bayston and Pruitt got a head start on 2026 in November at the World Finals at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Together, they ended the season with finishes of fifth and fourth and started third and sixth.
“It went very well,” Bayston said. “When I first started having conversations with Richard and Ricky about running the 2026 season, there was an idea to get us to race together at Charlotte to get a head start but that doesn’t happen without risk, right?
“It’s a new relationship and they accomplished a lot as a team together with Sheldon Haudenschild, won a lot of races. So the risk is going to Charlotte and struggling to get up to speed and ending the season on that note. But we had speed out of the gate. We were fast, qualified well, finished in the top five, and it was a big success.”
Again, more than anything, Bayston just wanted to land at a place where he hopes he could spend the next decade plus as an emerging championship contender who wins races in bulk. He’s known the Marshall family for over a decade and raced with Stenhouse at Chili Bowl over the years.
“It’s important to have people that believe in you,” Bayston said. “Ricky believes in me and Kyle and our guys to go out and chase this. I never got to the point where I started to think I couldn’t do it. It’s just, when you go on the road for a full season, and need to string runs together against the elite teams as a young driver, that’s the hard part.
“It takes time to get to that point where you’re an elite combination so having Ricky, Richard and Jennifer believing with their whole heart that Kyle and I can go out, be successful, win races and compete for a championship, that’s everything in this sport.”
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