Photo Credit: Ashley McCubbin
After getting his start in racing at the age of seven at the Waterloo Kart Club, Gary Klutt has made his way up the racing ladder and this past season in the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series, he put an exclaim point on that progress. The Halton Hills, Ontario driver completed the season sixth in point, but more importantly brought home the Jostens Rookie of the Year Award.
“I’m super happy,” he told OnPitRoad.com. “It was just our goal from the start of the season. We knew we were coming in against the toughest rookie crop yet, and knew it was going to be a tough battle. The whole team is super excited that we completed our goal.”
The driver of the No. 59 CTL Corp. / Legendary Motorcar entry started off the season on a high-note, picking up the victory at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park after making his way by Scott Steckly and Andrew Ranger on the last lap when they made contact.
“It was just my long time goal since I was running my first race, to win one of these things,” he commented. “It was awesome to get the pole and the win. It gave me so much confidence going into the season to run against these guys that have I have looked up to most of my teenage years in racing.”
From there, the 23-year-old was solid over the course of the season with seven top-10 finishes in the 11 races. Over the course of the season, there were highs with five straight top-10s to start the year, but also some weekends that didn’t go as planned.
“It was definitely a roller coaster,” he said. “The win – to start off with that was great. We’re definitely fast on the road courses, and we had some quick run and then some bad luck. Racing happens. A couple of times we got dumped, a couple of times the car broke, but we learned a lot. To hang on for the rookie of the year was great.”
Looking back on his rookie campaign in Canada’s premiere series, Klutt says the biggest thing that he learned was how important it is to have a good car for the ovals.
“On a road course, you can fight your way through and have a good finish. But a lot of these guys have their oval cars so dialed in that if its not good, its bad,” he explained. “You’re going to go backwards in a hurry.”
With that said, Klutt stated that their biggest thing moving forward will be working at improving their program through testing the oval car to continue learning about the car and getting it dialed in so they can be strong for the longer runs. As noted by eighth top-10 starting spot over the year, they “have speed, but we just need it there at the end.”
