Tim Steele, An ARCA Great

Tim Steele was one of the greatest drivers in the ARCA Menards Series. With the second-most championships, trailing only Frank Kimmel, and third-most wins, trailing Kimmel and Iggy Katona, his statistics are still some of the series best.

“He was as good as it gets at this level,” ARCA Communications Manager Charles Krall told Frontstretch. “Tim was incredibly fast everywhere he raced in everything he raced. I watched him race in the ASA series, ARCA and the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series. He was incredibly talented with a great team behind him and I was fortunate to be coming up as a young race fan when his career kicked into high gear.

“He was dominant on the big tracks. Nine wins at Pocono Raceway, four wins at Charlotte Motor Speedway, four at Talladega Superspeedway, three wins at both Michigan International Speedway and Atlanta Motor Speedway. The bigger and faster the racetrack was, the better he was going to be. Pocono is an incredibly difficult racetrack to get a hold of and he won there nine times. He got those 41 wins in 147 starts; that’s an incredible winning percentage close to 30%. Kimmel won 80 races but he started 500 races. I don’t know if we have seen somebody quite that dominant. There are drivers like Corey LaJoie, who won three races in seven starts, and that’s incredible. But try to do that over 80-100 starts, and Steele was able to do that over 147 starts. Prodigious when it comes to winning races.”

Among Steele’s accomplishments are the most wins in a single season in the modern ARCA era, which is post-1979, and he is tied for the longest win streak at five.

“Tim was a fantastic competitor,” current ARCA team owner, and former driver, Andy Hillenburg said. “He put together great cars and then he also knew how to wheel them. So it was a pretty potent combination. A lot of people can drive them and a lot of people know how to put them together, but when you find somebody who can put both those skills to use, you go on to win 41 races.”

One of the people that Hillenburg has shared stories about racing against Steele with his driver Zachary Tinkle.

“He had the whole respect of the ARCA garage,” Tinkle added. “Whether it was Wayne Peterson, David Richmond, Hillenburg and Todd Parrott, they all had one thing in common when it came to Steele and that was their undying respect for him, his accomplishments in this sport and his grit and determination to do whatever it takes to…