Canadian Drivers at #indyTO : Scott Steckly (Driver Turned Team Owner) of the NASCAR Pinty's Series

Scott Steckly: “For the past 25 years, I was the driver.”

By: Christian Ryan

Four-time NASCAR Pinty’s Series Champion Scott Steckly didn’t set out to break records.

A passion for cars and all things fast brought the Milverton, Ontario native to purchase an old car at 18. Steckly already had a knack for speed, pushing go karts and ATVs to their limits, but the mindset was primarily on the vehicles rather than racing. He and his friends took to tuning and restoring the old car, eventually entering it in street stock races at Varney Speedway. With a racing machine ready to be tested, one element was missing: the driver. In filling a void, Steckly’s illustrious racing career was born: “I ended up being the driver.”

The first season of racing street stock at Varney Speedway saw Steckly and his friends claim the class’ championship. They took on a new challenge in building a new car to move up another class. Year by year, a new success brought a new car and another notch on Steckly’s racing resume. After four years driving in late models, it was time to move to Canada’s top stock car racing series and accept racing as a full-time job.

“We built the CASCAR and raced in the CASCAR series I would say from ’99 until about 2007 when NASCAR bought it,” Steckly says. “That’s when it sort of became a full time thing when NASCAR bought it and we got more sponsors and turned it into a career.”

NASCAR acquiring CASCAR and becoming the now-NASCAR Pinty’s Series saw Steckly turn into a major figure in stock car racing. Aside from the distinction that it gave Steckly, it also validated Canadian motorsport as a major player in professional stock car racing.

“Everybody was pretty excited,” Steckly said of the formation of the NASCAR Pinty’s Series. “If NASCAR is interested in it and wants to buy it, it was obviously a good series with great teams and competitors, and great sponsors… I feel our series has held its own. We put on great shows, and there’s a lot of great sponsors, we have a lot of great fans, and hopefully it will only get better.””

After a racing career in NASCAR that saw Steckly among the series all-time winners, competing in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, and claiming the most championships in Pinty’s Series history, he has now turned his focus to management of his racing team Scott Steckly Racing. While maintaining a record-setting racing career as an owner-driver stands as a major achievement, it also takes its toll.

“There always comes time when you’ve got to shift focus on my business and treat it more as a business,” Steckly explains, while still maintaining a pride in his achievement as a NASCAR Pinty’s Series driver. “The amount of race wins we got, the amount of championships we got, the amount of poles we got, the amount of laps lead we got. We set a lot of, in the past eight years of NASCAR, our team - which I have a very very great team of guys - just the amount of records our team has set. It makes you feel very very good.”

At the completion of a storied career in Canada’s premier stock car racing series, this new direction in Steckly’s career has seen him become a leader and mentor in the evolution of the series. Having been with the series from the very beginning, Steckly’s drive is rooted in the series’ future. Scott Steckly Racing, with its success and prestige, looks to become the trendsetter for NASCAR in Canada as a transformative presence.

“We’re looking at kind of getting into a development role with the company and try to bring along up and coming drivers and I can help mentor that driver,” Steckly says of the aims of his race team. As the series’ championship leader, his guidance alone can make all the difference. “ I feel - I have a lot of on-track experience - that I can really be a benefit to someone.”

As well as the development of drivers in the series, Steckly also has his eyes on the growth of the NASCAR Pinty’s Series in the Canadian conscience. The Honda Indy Toronto race weekend, featuring the Pinty’s Grand Prix, is among the events that he sees as bringing there series to a broader national audience.

“It’s amazing to be able to race on the streets of Toronto in front of the crowds that you get there,” he says of Honda Indy Toronto’s impact on the series.

While Steckly enjoys returning to the original passions such as ATV and snowmobiling that sparked his interest in racing, he keeps his mind set on the continuation and growth of the NASCAR Pinty’s Series as a major element of Canadian spors. Events such as the Pinty’s Grand Prix set the standard for the series and grow nationwide awareness.

“Canadian fans, we need to try and get more of them involved,” he says. “You go into a car show and so many people say they don’t even know there’s a NASCAR series in Canada. They go to the States to watch NASCAR. As a whole as a series, we’ve got to try to make more people aware of our series.”