Steckly brought his 22 Racing/Canadian Tire Dodge to Autodrome St. Eustache with one thing in mind and that was to get their first win of 2014. He did that by winning in a dominant way and continued his string of top finishes at this .4 mile flat oval. In six starts at Autodrome St. Eustache, Steckly has not finished outside the top four, with four wins, a second and a fourth place finish.
First practice results showed Steckly third quickest and he was reporting a tight condition. The Canadian Tire Dodge team went to work during the half hour break to make the necessary changes to make the car turn better in the corners. In second practice they saw an improvement as he moved up to second on the timing charts.
Steckly would end the qualifying session in the same second position, as the top two qualifiers beat the previous track record set in 2009 by D.J. Kennington. “I had a really good first lap and thought I could do better on my second one, but I spun the tires just a little coming out of turn two and that likely cost us the pole,” said Steckly after qualifying.
The green flag flew for the National 250 at 8 p.m. in front of a large enthusiastic crowd. By the completion of lap one, Steckly had moved passed pole sitter Alex Labbe on the outside to take the lead, a position he would hold for the first 100 laps of the race. After pitting for fuel and then two additional pit stops for right and left side tires, Steckly was ready to take his Canadian Tire Dodge to the front again. The car was impressive as he could pass on the inside or the outside and by the 152 he was back on point and pulling away from the rest of the field. Even with several cautions over the final fifth laps, Steckly was able to open up some space on second place finisher Alex Guenette. “We just run well here,” said Steckly after the race. “My crew is just incredible. We had some trouble on the way here on Friday and the people of my hometown of Milverton, and all of my crew and family pulled together to overcome those difficulties and get us to the track this weekend. I can’t say enough about all of them.”
Next up for Steckly and his 22 Racing/Canadian Tire Dodge team will be the Grand Prix de Trois Rivieres on Aug. 10th.
The National 250 from St. Eustache will be broadcast on TSN on Sun. Aug. 3 at 11 a.m. and on RDS2 on Sat. Aug. 9 at 1:30 p.m.
Scott Steckly is supported by the following companies: Canadian Tire Corporation, Osram Sylvania, Mobil 1, Erb Group of Companies, AW Millwrights, Reefer Sales and Metrocom Canada.
Fans can follow Scott Steckly through his website at 22racing.ca or on Twitter @ScottSteckly22 or you can Like the 22RacingTeam fan page on Facebook. For all at track updates during race weekends for Scott and the other 22 Racing Team entries follow us on Twitter @22RacingTeam.
