Scott Steckly and his 22 Racing Team were back in action this weekend at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park in round nine of the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series presented by Mobil 1 with high expectations. Steckly ran a great race and finished in the top five and was pleased with the final result.
Saturday’s schedule included practice and qualifying and Steckly quickly posted times just outside the top five in both sessions. When qualifying was complete later in the day Steckly was shown as 6th quickest of the over 30 cars in attendance. “The car felt really comfortable in qualifying,” said Steckly. “I think we have a really good race setup under the car and we will look to improve our position as it’s a long race.”
On Sunday for the Pinty’s presents the Clarington 200, Steckly would start from the third row on the outside for the 51 lap race. Steckly moved the Canadian Tire/Sylvania Dodge up closer to the front steadily as the laps ticked off. After completing a pit stop for fuel and suffering a drive through penalty for speeding off pit road, Steckly began the march back to the front of the field. By lap 25 the Canadian Tire Dodge moved to the lead, a position he held for the next 8 laps. When the caution flag flew at that point the team had to make a tough decision on whether to pit for tires or remain out and go the distance with the original tires. The decision was made and he brought the 22 Racing Dodge to pit road and took on fresh rubber and restarted in the 12th position. When the checkered flag waved he was scored in fifth. “It was a really tough decision on whether to pit or not with 18 laps to go,” said Steckly. “If we stayed out we knew there were three or four drivers who were faster as they had fresher tires and if we pitted we would be back in the field and have to pass a lot of cars to get back to the front. As a driver I wanted the fresh tires and I think we made the right call.”
The Pintys presents the Clarington 200 from Canadian Tire Motorsport Park will air on TSN on Saturday Sept. 6 at 5:30 p.m. EDT and Thurs. Sept. 18th at 8 p.m. on RDS2.
Next on the agenda for the 22 Racing/Canadian Tire team is Barrie Speedway, a 1/3 mile oval that Steckly has enjoyed success at on Saturday September 6th. Go to barriespeedway.com for event details.
Scott Steckly is supported by the following companies: Canadian Tire Corporation, Osram Sylvania, the Official Oil supplier of 22 Racing, 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. For all NASCAR Canadian Tire Series updates go to nascarhometracks.com.
