He is one of the greatest in USAC history, particularly over the past decade. Yet just as Dave Steele is at the zenith of his career, the 34-year-old racer is quietly spending more and more time out of the limelight, building a speed-shop business in his native Tampa, Fla.
His self-imposed schedule isn’t permanent, nor completely without racing. He continues to race locally with the TBARA sprint-car series, where he has won several races in 2008. But after 12 years of full-time racing on the USAC Silver Crown, sprint-car and midget pavement circuits, Steele has run only a few select races this season.
He arrived in Indiana in 1996, coming off a record-setting victory in the Little 500 where he became the youngest winner in race history. Driving for Jack Nowling, with help from longtime fellow Sunshine State car owner Harold Wirtjes, Steele quickly proved he had the ability to compete against USAC’s best.
Within a year, Steele surprised onlookers when he made the decision to concentrate solely on pavement. He clearly showed some ability on dirt, but because he didn’t enjoy it as much, he simply said no.
It was an early indication of who Dave Steele really is: Above and beyond anything else, he is his own man, charting his own course on his terms. Then, now and always.
His USAC stats are impressive: 59 national wins, including 16 Silver Crown victories, second only to Jack Hewitt’s 23. He was the Silver Crown champion in 2004 and ’05.
“It’s kind of a combination of things,” Steele said when asked about his absence from most USAC competition this season. “I think with all the racing and moving around, I got burned out a little bit, and maybe a little homesick. When you realize you’re not going to be Jeff Gordon or Tony Stewart, you start to assess where you are and what you want to do.
“When I just ran the pavement stuff up there, I could make an OK living, but I always knew I couldn’t race forever. Particularly with sprint cars, eventually you’ll have to stop. Most of us guys (in sprint cars) are getting paid strictly on performance, so when I’m 45 and my performance begins to drop off, I don’t have anything to fall back on.
“So I decided I’d cut back some now, and devote myself to getting this business going, so that I could still be in the sport for a long time.”

“I’d like to think I could go back and still be on top if I was chasing the deal all the time, or at least be close to the top."

— Dave Steele

That is, in essence, the defining drawback of Dave Steele: Coupled with his enormous skills was a constant, steady vision of the big picture, an extremely rare combination among racers. The best racers are often like a comet: Brilliant at their peak, but completely lost and hopeless when the light begins to fade. From the beginning, Steele had a clear idea of what he wanted and viewed life from a practical, long-term perspective.
His newest challenge is his company, Steele Performance Products, which sells racing parts and supplies to many of his former and current competitors.
“That takes up most of my time these days,” he says. “I’m having fun at it, it’s kind of a new challenge for me. Most of my life savings is there on the shelves, and it’s not easy to be in business these days. But I like it, and I’d like to try and grow it to something I can fall back on completely when I quit racing.”
The biggest question he gets, he admits, is people asking him why he isn’t out there racing full-time on the USAC pavement. After all, they say, it’s awfully early to begin cutting back a guy’s schedule when he’s only 34 years old.
“I would agree that most sprint car guys are in their prime at age 34, but I don’t know,” he says. “I’d like to think I could go back and still be on top if I was chasing the deal all the time, or at least be close to the top. Actually, when we race locally we’re pretty tough to beat…but then again I’ve got good equipment. This local car I run, Lenny Puglio, Bob Gratton  and Rick Kinsler, they give me a really good car.”
It’s too early to write Steele off  because it’s obvious his competitive fires have not been extinguished. He’s just cooled off a bit, and at any moment he might get fired up about getting back into national competition. One of the keys to his future, he said, rests with the announcement of the 2009 USAC Silver Crown schedule.
“I’m going out to Phoenix for the Copper Classic here in a few weeks (Nov. 6) with Bruce Nicholas, and I’m looking forward to that,” he said. “Hopefully, the Silver Crown pavement deal can get a strong schedule next year. We’re putting a car together, and we’ll plan on going to Phoenix and hopefully running all the pavement races next year. But we’ll see.”
So, he works each day at his business, selling parts and trying to make a living. With the same wry, gentle wit that has endeared him to countless people along the way, he laughs about his situation.
“The thing for me, I’m trying to avoid having a real job,” he explained. “Going someplace every day and punching a time clock, having a boss looking over my shoulder, that would be pretty hard for me.
“I like being independent. If I race until I’m 45 or 50 and then have to get a job, that doesn’t seem attractive at all. If I can build a business that’s at least successful enough to support me, I won’t have to get a job. Not having a job makes me a whole lot happier.”