CASCAR: Steckly’s Race Weekend Marred with Problems

Bowmanville, ON - Scott Steckly of Milverton, Ontario was looking to build off of his best finish of the CASCAR season two weeks ago at St. Eustache. The team was at Mosport International Raceway for the first road course race on the schedule. Traditionally, Scott has been very strong on road courses and his last 2 visits to Mosport resulted in top 5 finishes.

Trouble started early for the #22 Erb Group/ International Truck and Engine Pontiac Grand Prix only 2 laps into the 1st practice session, as they had blew out the driveshaft causing considerable damage to the undercarriage of the car. After making the repairs the team was able to get out for the 2nd qualifying session but something was not quite right with the engine as Scott could only manage to qualify the #22 car in 19th place with a time of 1:30.641. For the second time this year the team decided to change engines for the race, However the Erb Group team would have to start at the back of the 33 car field on Sunday. This was the third time in three races that the #22 team had to start at the back of the pack for a race which makes it very hard to work your way through the field, especially on road courses such as Mosport.

When the green flag dropped on Sunday, Scott proved his road racing experience by passing 12 cars in the first 2 laps. Following a pit stop on lap 17, which the team changed all four tires, Steckly was up into 14th position and still gaining on the rest of the field. Ten laps after the pit stop, Scott was into the top-10 in 7th place. He stayed there until lap 40, when problems spelled the end of the day for Scott Steckly, just 10 laps shy of the finish. While crossing the start/finish line something broke in the engine causing the car to lose power. Crew Chief, Ken Gropp’s preliminary thought is that something in the valve train broke. Scott was forced to park the car and ended up finishing in 25th place. After the race Scott commented “I just hate this for our new sponsorship with the International Truck dealers, we’ve had great cars and set-ups, but we just can’t get any racing luck. The team is positive though, and we’re going to keep working on winning our first race”