Scott Steckly, four-time NASCAR champion, talks about his racing success
OSHAWA – Scott Steckly, 2015 NASCAR Canadian Tire Series champion, is the 33rd driver to win four or more NASCAR titles. Steckly finished second at Kawartha Speedway in the final race of the season to hold off Jason Hathaway by four points.
There were 11 races on the 2015 NCATS schedule. Scott Steckly earned himself three wins and seven top-five finishes to win his fourth championship. Steckly only finished outside of the top 10 once.
The 43-year-old thinks his racing experience and the performance of his race team are the keys to his success. Steckly is one of three drivers to participate in every race since the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series began in 2007.
“A great team,” Steckly said. “I have great crew members that have been with me for a long time. We’re very good at preparing cars. I have a lot of trust in them, they have trust in me. After you’ve been doing it for this long you get to know setups.”
Before the NCATS, Scott Steckly was a competitive driver in the CASCAR Super Series. In 2006, he finished sixth overall in the national points standings. Steckly began to rise through the ranks after winning the 1992 Street Stock Division Championship. In the mid 90’s, he raced throughout southern Ontario and won a Goodyear Challenge Cup.
Scott Steckly holds records in the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series for most wins, most laps led, and most wins on an oval track. Steckly is not feeling pressure to accomplish anything further in NASCAR competition.
“I’m satisfied,” Steckly said. “I’m very happy with everything I’ve accomplished. I’m at the point right now where I want to try to continue to grow 22 Racing as a business. Maybe try to get in some younger drivers to win races. We’ve proven we can win races. We have won races with Mark Dilley, L.P. Dumoulin, and now Alex Tagliani. So, we want to continue that.”
One thing that most NASCAR fans don’t know; Scott Steckly has never won a NASCAR race on a road course. In the 2015 season opener, Steckly had the lead at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, a four kilometer road course in Bowmanville, Ontario. However, while entering the final turn on the final lap, Andrew Ranger and Scott Steckly made hard contact with each other and both cars hit the wall. Neither driver won the race.
Scott Steckly prefers racing on high-banked oval tracks.
“That allows you to race side by side with your competitors. It’s not a one-groove race track. You can move around the race track to try to find more grip,” Steckly said. “It’s definitely more in the driver’s hands and not the race track.”
For over ten years Scott Steckly has been racing for his own race team. 22 Racing fields two cars in every NASCAR Canadian Tire Series event. His teammate, Alex Tagliani, won the 300 lap event at Sunset Speedway. Tagliani managed to put every single car at least one lap down, a rare occurrence in NASCAR.
Scott Steckly says lots of information gets shared in the garage area between Tagliani and himself.
“Anything he does at the track he tells me,” Steckly said. “All the adjustments we make throughout practices; I tell him what we do and he tells me what they do. We talk about setups prior to going to the track. We go and test together. We share everything we can because you need every advantage you can get.”
Sometimes, 22 Racing signs a driver from higher levels of NASCAR to race in a 22 Racing car in NCATS events. Spencer Gallagher, NASCAR Camping World Truck Series driver, wanted to gain some extra experience at CTMP before his truck series race. Gallagher contacted Scott Steckly to discuss a plan to enter a third 22 Racing car in the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series race.
Without question, Scott Steckly is on his way to becoming one of the best NASCAR Canadian Tire Series drivers in history. Don’t count him out next year.
Photos by: Tyler McMurter
