Striving for that Outlaws lifestyle
Sheboygan’s Thiel wants to drive series full time
BEAVER DAM – It’s amazing how fine the line is sometimes.
Two years ago, Scotty Thiel was burned out. A close friend’s death weighed on his mind. Getting out of work to race sprint cars had become increasingly difficult. Thiel was limping along, trying to do too much with too little and he was crashing too often, tearing up equipment he couldn’t properly replace. For the first time in more than a decade, he did not win a feature.
“I was completely over it,” the 30year-old from Sheboygan said.
“I couldn’t believe it myself, But I was at a point that I actually went and worked for a kid that raced sprint cars – like his crew chief – and at that time of my life I had more enjoyment than racing.”
But by last December – even after missing five weeks midseason with a broken back – Thiel was drawing up a budget for a full season on the World of Outlaws tour, the pinnacle of sprint car racing. He and Team 73 couldn’t quite make the numbers work at the time, but at the very least they were laying the groundwork for a possible run in 2023.
“I got hurt right when we were finding speed last year and then came back from my injury and still had the speed,” said Thiel, who worked with noted orthopedic specialist Terry Trammell after a flip at the Plymouth Dirt Track left him with a fractured vertebra.
“Finally cracked off a win, and that was probably one of the best feelings I’ve had in a race car. It just really rejuvenated me mentally to say, I can win a race now. And we went off and won four more after that and we’ve won two so far.”
Racing Friday on the first of two nights of the Outlaws’ Jim “JB” Boyd Memorial, Thiel had to keep his expectations in check. It’s hard for a part-time regional racer who sells pool tables and dartboards during the week to go headto-head with drivers who make their living racing about 80 nights a year.
Thiel and his team are running a “pick-and-choose” schedule this season, mixing some Outlaws races, some with the second-tier, Ohio/Pennsylvania-centric All Star Circuit of Champions and the Wisconsin-based IRA Sprints.
Thiel has won two of the eight IRA races this season. He has been among the leaders in victories five of the previous six years with a total of 21 over 143 feature starts. Only 10-time series champion Bill Balog has more in that span.
He also has competed in four All Stars events this season and finished third in the A-main at the Sheboygan County Fairgrounds as local drivers went 1-2-3.
Thiel finished 13th Friday night in a feature won by Sheldon Haudenschild.
“Back in the day, the goal was just to make the show and everybody was happy with that,” said Thiel, whose best Outlaws feature finish has been eighth. “I feel like where we’ve built this program now, top-10s are definitely doable and kind of on my radar to be, hey, we need to be running top 10.
“Top five would be like a win, and I feel like if we could put a podium run together it would be pretty spectacular and make a lot of people happy.”
Thiel, though, would like to change that.
It’d take some more sponsorship money to make a proper full-time run, and Team 73 – which he joined as a partner last year – would need to add a fourth person to the crew who could go on the road full time. Then Thiel would have to work with his employer on a schedule that would allow him to work a real job while also chasing races from February to November. That shouldn’t be as big a problem with his new boss, his father-in-law.
“It’s also a little bit of a driver not having to worry about just race winnings to make a living, so I can at least go home and feed my wife and kid,” Thiel said.
The goal this season is for Thiel and Team 73 to build up to a national run, and if that were to happen, then the next year or two would be about gaining experience with the best of the best.
“I feel like we have the equipment to compete for a win,” Thiel said. “It’s just not making little driver mistakes. That’s just a little bit of a downfall of being a part-time and regional guy. This is what these guys do for a living and they don’t make mistakes, or when they do it’s very, very rare.
“I have expectations for where we should be at, but it’s not ego, it’s where we’ve built this program to compete that we can do that. Just limit the mistakes and make good calls on the car and try to put a good night together.”