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Steckly Comes From Behind to Finish Eighth

Scott Steckly driving under caution early at Mosport Speedway, August 21, 2004

Bowmanville, ON. With three weeks to prepare for the August 21st race at Mosport Speedway, the Erb Group/ Guyons Performance/ Thermo King/ AW Millwrights, Pontiac Grand Prix, driven by Scott Steckly knew that a strong performance at Mosport would go a long way to gaining positions in the Championship Standings. The Mosport Speedway 200 is the 9th of 12 races on the CASCAR Super Series tour around the country. The Mosport Oval is a ½ mile, banked oval. Practice produced very strong results as after both practice sessions Steckly was fifth fastest. Qualifying also produced similar results as Steckly, from Milverton, Ontario, qualified in fifth place with lap time of 22.109. On one day race programs you are not allowed to make any changes to your car after qualifying. The #23 car of Jeff Lapcevich which qualified fourth had to change his transmission, and as a result had to start the race from the back of the field.

Although Scott qualified fifth, he started in fourth position, second car on the outside lane. On the first lap of the race Steckly was passed by #64 Mark Dilley, dropping Scott down to fifth place. Which is where Steckly remained until; he returned the favour at lap 46 and passed Dilley to move back into fourth position. With leader Don Thomson Jr. driving away from the other cars on the lead lap, Steckly established a 4 second lead over Dilley until the third caution of the race came out on lap 96 and all of the lead lap cars chose to come into the pits. Crew Chief Ken Gropp decided to put two right side tires and fuel into the car. The Erb Group Pontiac ended up dropping one position on pit road and restarted the race in fifth place. But on the restart the #39 car of Dave Whitlock got stuck in third gear and was slow when the green flag dropped and Scott got into the back of Whitlock, which bent the hood of the car to the point where Scott could barely see anything and had to rely on spotter Dave Elg to tell him if there were cars ahead of Scott. The incident caused Steckly to fall all the way down to the last car on the lead lap in twelfth place. With Scott barely being able to fend of race leader Don Thomson Jr. the yellow flag came out when rookie driver #41 Matty Tsoumaris spun out in turn 2. Steckly pitted to remove the cars hood and the Erb Group pit crew also changed a right rear tire. On the restart, Steckly was in 12th place, but quickly passed #19 Brad Graham, and #11 Ron Van Es to get back into the top ten. Steckly was doing a great job working his way back through the field in short order. But on the exit of turn 2 the rookie Van Es spun Scott, dropping Scott back to 12th. It was the second time this year that Van Es has spun Steckly, the last time it ended Scott's day at Cayuga. This time Scott remained in the race and on the next restart he quickly passed Graham and Van Es, followed by passes on Doug Brown in the #10 car and the #1 of Peter Gibbons, which put Scott into eighth place. Despite numerous attempts to pass Pete Shepherd Jr. Scott was unable to get by him and he went on to finish the race in eighth place. Scott thought he had a "top 3 or 5 for the race, until I hit Dave Whitlock". Scott Steckly's eighth place finish was enough to overtake Ron Beauchamp Jr. for seventh place in the Championship Standings with 1365 points.

In the drive for the 2004 CASCAR Super Series Championship, Scott Steckly and 22 Racing are supported by: The Erb Group of Companies, Thermo King of Eastern Canada, Guyons Performance Centres, AW Millwrights, Jutzi Fuels, CPL Systems, Mr. Transmission (Guelph), Commercial Babcock, TB Woods, Stratford Motor Products, Classy Collectables, PCL Graphics, Duplicolour, Filtakleen, and Holloway Automotive.

The next race in the CASCAR Super Series is Saturday, August 28 at Peterborough Speedway in Peterborough, ON. For more information contact kyle_erb@sympatico.ca. For more information on CASCAR, the Mosport Oval, or Peterborough Speedway visit, www.cascar.ca, http://www.mosport.com/ovalhome.htm, or http://www.peterboroughspeedway.com/.

RESULTS: MOSPORT SPEEDWAY 200
Round #9 // August 21, 2004 // Mosport Speedway
Bowmanville, ON // 200 Laps // ½-Mile, Banked Oval

R after the hometown denotes Rookie contender.

TIME OF RACE: 1 hour, 47 minutes and 29 seconds // MARGIN OF VICTORY: 0.935 seconds // CAUTIONS: 7 for a total of 41 laps // LAP LEADERS: #4 Don Thomson Jr. (1-96), #1 Peter Gibbons (97), #4 Thomson (98-200).

CASCAR SUPER SERIES UNOFFICIAL POINTS AS OF August 21, 2004:
1. #4 Don Thomson Jr. (1550); 2. #1 Peter Gibbons (1539); 3. #39 Dave Whitlock (1527); 4. #23 Jeff Lapcevich (1463); 5. #02 Kerry Micks (1450); 6. #64 Mark Dilley (1439); 7. #22 Scott Steckly (1365); 8. #60 Ron Beauchamp Jr. (1356); 9. #17 DJ Kennington (1335); 10. #19 Brad Graham (1288); 11. #50 Pete Shepherd III (1272); 12. #84 J.R. Fitzpatrick (1248); 13. #55 Rob Graham (1215); 14. #25 Jim Lapcevich (1202); 15. #88 Dave Jacombs (1158)

CASCAR ON TV: For information regarding upcoming CASCAR Super Series race broadcasts on SPORTSNET, please check your local listings or visit http://www.cascar.ca/schedule/tv_schedule.html.

Pit crew changing right side tires on lap 97

Hood damage after getting into Dave Whitlock

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