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[/media-credit]June 17, 2012. Bowmanville, ON. – On Saturday, Scott Steckly returned to the Clarington 200 at the Canadian Tire Motorsport Park speedway as the reigning champion. #22 showed up at yesterday’s competition with a very different race set-up than what won him the 1st place finish in 2011.
Earlier in the day, Steckly’s crew made changes to the car for qualifying, adjusting the set-up to Steckly’s liking. The bar was high for last year’s top driver, but it wasn’t any added pressure for #22.
“Even the top finisher can find things to do better,” Steckly said. “If you’re not trying to improve, you can’t get better.”
Practice and qualifying ended strong for #22 and his Canadian Tire Dodge, Steckly qualified 4th for that evening’s race. However, during the preliminary pace laps before the start of the race, Scott felt a problem with the car – initially assessing it as a flat tire. #22 made a quick pit stop and the team decided all of the tires on the Canadian Tire Dodge were fine. Unfortunately, it wasn’t until he left the pit he realized a broken axle was causing only one rear tire to drive the car.
Once the race went green, Steckly immediately made a pit stop and the team worked furiously to change the broken rear axle. Despite his team’s efficient work on the axle, #22 fell 8 laps behind. Steckly battled through the race making up 2 laps, but concluded the Clarington 200 in 14th place – 10 spots behind his initial 4thplace start. But Steckly wasn’t fazed.
“These things happen in racing,” he said after the race. “It’s still early in the season; we have time to make up for it. The team did a great job with the repairs; it’s too bad because we had a car that was just as fast as the rest.”
The Clarington 200 will be aired on TSN Sunday June 24 at 1 p.m. ET and on RDS Wed. July 11 at 10 p.m. ET
Next up for the 22 Racing/Canadian Tire Dodge team is the Emco 200 at Delaware on Saturday June 23. For more information please visit www.nascarhometracks.com
22 Racing is supported by the following sponsors: Canadian Tire, Motomaster Eliminator, Sylvania, Erb Group, Mobil 1 and AW Millwrights.
