July 25, 2012. Saskatoon, Sask. – Scott Steckly earned another top five finish on Wednesday at the Auto Clearing Motor Speedway behind the wheel of his #22 Canadian Tire Dodge. Despite the respectable high-placing finish, this is Steckly’s second-straight disappointing weekend of a significant lead falling short by the finish line.
Steckly and his crew had a smooth day of practice laps on the afternoon of the race, only needing to make a few minor adjustments as qualifying neared later that day. #22’s Canadian Tire Dodge ran fast in practice but loose during qualifying, and Steckly earned a 7th place starting position.
However, he saw the silver lining on his vehicle’s state of affairs: “We were a bit loose in qualifying, but we expect the track conditions to change and tighten up a bit so we think we’ll be good for the race,” Steckly explained after practice.
When the race kicked off, Steckly quickly left 7th place in the dust and made a strong push for the lead position. #22 leapt into the top five, stalking the leaders and aggressively collecting spots. Steckly’s efforts paid off during lap 79, when he propelled his Canadian Tire Dodge to the front of the pack. #22 remained up front until lap 131, only relinquishing his spot for a necessary pit stop.
After servicing his vehicle, Steckly had to claw his way back to contend with the race leaders and had difficulties regaining his frontrunner position as the race progressed.
Steckly managed to edge his way into the top five, but the 250-lap race concluded before he could collect any more spots and #22 was the fourth driver to cross the finish line.
“We weren’t quite as good after our pit stop but we chose not to pit again since we didn’t want to give up all the track position,” Steckly said after the race. “Maybe we should have pitted and adjusted on the car, we were a fourth place car and most likely would have benefitted from an extra push.”
Steckly’s 4th place finish holds on to his 2nd overall ranking in the standings with 280 total points. Steckly is 41 points behind #1 DJ Kennington and five points ahead of #3 Andrew Ranger.
The Velocity Prairie Thunder presented by Bayer Crop Science will be broadcast on TSN2 on Saturday, Aug. 4 at 6:30 p.m. ET and RDS2 on Sunday, Sept. 2 at 6:30 p.m. ET.
Next on the schedule for the 22 Racing/Canadian Tire Team is the Grand Prix de Trois Rivieres on Aug. 3-5.
22 Racing is supported by the following sponsors: Canadian Tire, Motomaster Eliminator, Sylvania, Erb Group, Mobil 1 and AW Millwrights.
