NEWTON, NC :: Taylor Stricklin clinched the Limited Late Model championship at Hickory Motor Speedway on Saturday night. While only a winner twice, Stricklin’s championship season was paved by consistency week in and week out.
Stricklin, the son of former NASCAR Winston Cup Series competitor Hut Stricklin, has previously run in Late Models on a part time basis – most notably the UARA-STARS tour, which suspended operations during the offseason. However, Stricklin had found himself frustrated with the lack of seat time.
“We decided to do that this year and run the Limited deal, Stricklin said. “The last couple years, we ran hit and miss here and there, wherever we wanted to go, ran some UARA and stuff like that and, pretty much, me and my dad were talking and, well, it sucks to have to just race once a month and take three or four weeks for side work to scrape enough money to get to the track and buy a set of tires. Obviously the seat time wasn’t there doing that.”
This year, citing cost benefits, Stricklin made the decision to run in Limited Late Model division at Hickory Motor Speedway.
“Back at the beginning of the year, we didn’t have a clue what we’d do yet,” Stricklin explained. “When the UARA announced they were shutting down, that wasn’t an option anymore. There was nowhere we could run Late Models on a weekly basis and get our money back by finishing in the top 10 so we did the LLM deal at Hickory with their used tire program made it affordable and where I could be in the seat every week. I could get in the car and get help for a few different people. Seth Smith’s been a huge part.”
The move paid off. Stricklin scored two wins at Hickory Motor Speedway this season and went on to win the division championship – something he considers an honor.
“My dad asked, ‘did you ever think before the season started that we’d be winning a championship’ and I said ‘no’,” Stricklin stated. “We have never run a full season in Late Models or 10 or so races in one year over the last two or three years. To be able to do it at Hickory, it’s so competitive, to come away from there with a championship. We had several podium finishes and only a handful of bad nights. It’s really quite an honor.”
Looking ahead to the rest of the season, Stricklin plans to venture out to other tracks. He has already filed an entry in the Mischa Sell Memorial which will be run at Ace Speedway in October. Stricklin feels he will only improve as a driver by competing against different drivers at different tracks.
“I’d like to make the trip out to Southern National Motorsports Park,” Stricklin commented. “There’s some stout competition out that way as well as Ace. I want to see how we’ll stack up against people from other places and see if we can do anything to make ourselves better.”
Stricklin will also make his debut in the Pro All Stars Series (PASS) southern Super Late Model tour this weekend at Hickory Motor Speedway. Stricklin hopes he can have success in the Super Late Models and compete down south next season while also competing at Hickory Motor Speedway once again in the Limited Late Model ranks.
“We’ll make our PASS debut this weekend,” Stricklin remarked. “A friend of my dad, Jim Lemonds, bought an older car. He’s never owned a racecar. He called us up and wanted setup help and someone to drive it so we’ll give it a whirl and test it out a few races this year and maybe go down south and race some next year. We’ll go wherever the wind blows us. We don’t want to get involved in points racing until we have the opportunity to do it at the next level now that we have that feather in our cap.”
