Andretti back for Pinty’s encore
Adam Andretti of Brownsburg, Ind. — and yes, he’s a member of that racing family — is bullish about the future of the NASCAR Canada Pinty’s stock-car racing series.
The 38-year-old nephew of Mario, brother of John and cousin of Michael and Marco who’s a veteran of Trans-Am Series racing himself, decided to “try out” the series on the Honda Indy weekend in July and finished third in the Pinty’s Grand Prix of Toronto. He was sold. He’s back for another kick at the can Sunday when the second-last race of the Pinty’s Series season, the Total Quartz 200, goes to the post at 11 a.m. at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park (CTMP) in support of the weekend’s main event, the Chevrolet Silverado 250 featuring the trucks and stars of the NASCAR Camping World Series.
Being a Trans-Am racer, he’s competed at CTMP previously. Two years ago, he drove in the race that turned out to be a sort of swan song for Ron Fellows, one of Canada’s most successful international road racing stars. Fellows, now a co-owner of CTMP, won his last race.
“And he did it in such great, Ron Fellows style,” Andretti said on the phone from his suburban Indianapolis home. “He had a tire going down; I think there were 12 pounds left in it when the race ended. When something like that happens, it’s hard enough to keep a high-horsepower car on the track, never mind holding on for the win. But that was Ron Fellows.”
Adam Andretti, who’s 16 years younger than his better-known brother John, a successful IndyCar and NASCAR driver, said his motorsport aspirations were handicapped by changing times in motorsports.
“When John started out,” he said, “it was all about talent. If you were the fastest, you got the ride. When I started out, it was all about money. So if a car owner had two drivers in front of him, one with talent and the other with maybe not as much talent but money to take to the team, guess which driver got hired?
“I didn’t have the money, so my career stalled compared to other members of the family.”
Andretti, who describes himself as a “hired gun” when discussing his relationship with his EEC Motorsports Trans-Am team owner Arne Henriksen, said that, “I always kept an eye on NASCAR Canada and the Pinty’s Series. NASCAR has done such a great job of controlling the rules, staying consistent with the rules.
“I said to Arne and others that the Pinty’s Series is cool because it’s a series where you race the other drivers. There aren’t too many of those around, where the drivers can really make a difference.”
As a result of those conversations, Andretti was instructed to check out the Pinty’s Series and to find a team willing and able “to take our resources.” Translation: him as the driver and his team owner’s cash.
That’s how he came to contact fourtime NASCAR Canada champion Scott Steckly and his 22 Racing Team of Milverton, Ont. Steckly is mostly retired, but he runs a business preparing cars for other drivers to race. Alex Tagliani is one of his clients.
“I called him and we clicked right away,” Andretti said. “My biggest fear was that he wasn’t going to have anything for me to race!”
An arrangement was made, however, and Andretti went on to drive a 22 Racing Team car to a podium finish in the Honda Indy support race. The driver was so excited afterward that he said he would talk up the series when he got back to the States and “I’ll have half the Trans-Am paddock up here,” a quip that landed him in hot water with Trans-Am officials.
“But I was serious,” he said. “This is the best, most competitive and affordable big-league racing going.”
The Pinty’s Series stock cars and the Camping World trucks will practise and qualify Saturday and race Sunday with the stock cars going off late in the morning and the trucks getting the green flag at 2:30 p.m.