Jack Steck Is Still Preparing Winning Cars

Jack Steck still works on racing cars at his western Ohio home. One of open-wheel racing’s senior citizens, he’s spent most of six decades as a mechanic, car builder and owner.
Although he was instrumental in multiple championship efforts, there has been little recognition of his accomplishments. And, as those who know Steck will attest, he would be the very last person to point that out.
Growing up near Drexel, Ohio, Steck fell into racing at a young age. In the 1930s, his father, Vern, was highly regarded as an engine builder.
“At the drag strips, my dad won so many trophies that he started selling them,” Jack recalls. “He was a Ford man and he won a lot of races on Ford motors. He did them himself.”
Steck began helping his father work on his cars while still a teenager. At some point, their interests migrated from the drag strips to oval track racing. At the time, it was natural for them to not only build engines, but also fabricate their own cars. 
With success competing at local tracks, the Stecks expanded their efforts. One of the cars best remembered is the Steck Buick Special they campaigned with both Al and Harold (no relation) Smith.
“That’s one that my dad and I built. We won a lot of races with that car,” he says proudly. “We won a lot of races with Al Smith. He wasn’t that good on the dirt, but he was good on the pavement.”
It wasn’t long before Steck had moved up the ladder and was working on the USAC circuit. Today, the details of the individual teams and the drivers who filled the cockpits of those cars are no longer as clear as they once were in Steck’s mind. He insists, “I don’t think I ever had a driver that I didn’t get along with, you know what I mean? We had a lot of good drivers.”
“Anybody that was somebody in the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s drove for Jack Steck,” says John Mendenhall, who painted Steck’s machines.
One of Steck’s best-known collaborations was with Ray Smith, a veteran car owner from Eaton, Ohio. Steck recalls, “We won quite a few races with him, but he was the kind of guy, he had to have three cars. He wanted to have three or four different drivers, he always wanted a bunch of drivers.” 

STILL PRESENT: Jack Steck's (center second row) racing career has many memories, among them Rich Vogler's first USAC sprint-car victory at Indianapolis Raceway Park in 1978. (John Mahoney Photo)

Larry Dickson captured USAC’s sprint-car title in 1968, and along the way accomplished a feat that has never been equaled. Driving the Smith Speed Shop sprinter, Dickson captured seven-consecutive victories. He later added a victory at Eldora before leaving for another car. Steck hired Jerry “Scratch” Daniels for the balance of the year and Smith claimed the owner’s point crown.
Even though Dickson competed the season in several different cars, his record for 1968 is impressive. In 33 races, he had 27 top-five finishes, including a record-setting dozen visits to victory lane.
After a long stint with Smith, Steck joined South Bend tire dealer Ben Leyba’s team. When they hired Sheldon Kinser for the 1981 season, they quickly found success. Kinser notched three victories in the first five starts and never looked back, finishing the 20-race season with seven wins, 14 top-five finishes and his second championship. The next year, they scored five victories and top-five runs in 20 of 25 races, again earning USAC’s sprint-car crown. 
“If the car wasn’t that good, he’d drive it anyhow,” Steck says fondly. “Sheldon was the best guy you were ever around to have fun with. He liked to drink beer. But you know I followed him to the races a lot of times, him and his wife (Suzy), and he’d run the speed limit. He wasn’t like a lot of these drivers. That’s the way he’d run, I don’t know why.  But you get him in a race car and he’d go…I had more fun with Sheldon than I did with anybody. He could have been a comedian. He was just funny. You never did see him get mad. I liked him. He was real good.”
Steck didn’t waste any money. He built and maintained sprint and Silver Crown cars for Leyba until the car owner’s death. Leyba’s ’81 and ’82 owner’s titles and 32 sprint-car victories rank sixth in USAC’s record book. 
One of their best-known wheelmen was a very young Tony Stewart, who drove in both divisions for Leyba in 1992 and 1993. It was Stewart’s first foray into the traditional champ cars and he scored top-six finishes in seven of his first nine starts. In sprint cars, Stewart earned wins at Salem and IRP in 1993.
“He wrecked a car and really it wasn’t his fault,” Steck recalls. “When we got hold of him, he hadn’t run any big tracks with the long cars. He got going good. He crashed the car, I think it was at Eldora, and this one guy that worked with me went over and fired him. I didn’t know anything about it.”
As a long-time USAC racer, it seems odd that Steck wasn’t a regular at  Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
“I did go over there one time. I was working with Sheldon. I forget whose motor it was, but the motor came apart and we went home,” Steck said. “That’s the only time I was there. I had a few chances, but it just didn’t interest me. You’d go over there and stand around and you’d do this and you’d do that, and I thought, heck, I want to race.”
Working with his son Greg, Jack has fielded cars for Darryl Guiducci’s 6R Racing for nearly 15 years, a team that ranks fourth in Silver Crown series victories. Their drivers have included Jack Hewitt, the winningest driver in Silver Crown history, P.J. Jones and most recently Brian Tyler.
“He (Guiducci) is thinking I’m getting too old for this stuff, so he’s kind of easing it off on me. Usually I keep his one dirt car here, and then they keep the new pavement car where another guy has a shop up there.”
“I think I get more fun out of working on the cars here at home,” Jack says. Then he stops, thinking about what he just said. “But still, if you go out and win races, you like that, too. If I’d go a long streak and not win races, I’d just quit. That’s the fun of it.”