Photo Credit: Ashley McCubbin
With the days counting down to the new year, it’s no surprise that all the NASCAR Pinty’s Series competitors are working hard to put together their plans for the upcoming season.
One of the biggest stories coming out of 2015 was that neither of the top-two finishers in points had sponsorship locked up for the forth coming season. Thus far into the off-season, that seems to remain the case. 2015 Series Runner-Up Jason Hathaway commented on Monday that it’s coming along. Hathaway finished second in points after closing out the season with two victories, winning at both Canadian Tire Motorsports Park and Kawartha Speedway.
“We have a few proposals out and have met with a few companies,” he said. “It’s going in the right direction. We’ll see if we can do the full deal, or do a few races. We were definitely waiting for this announcement today and then we can see what we can do for 2016.”
The announcement that Hathaway referred was the series entitlement sponsor, which was revealed on Monday in Toronto, Ontario. NASCAR announced that they had entered into a six-year relationship with Pinty’s Delicious Foods, building upon the relationship that began originally in 2012.
RELATED: NASCAR, Pinty’s Announce Six-Year Entitlement Sponsorship Agreement
2015 Series Champion Scott Steckly commented on Monday that he wasn’t 100% sure on whether he’d be back full-time, or part-time. The Milverton, Ontario native had a stellar season en route to his record fourth series championship.
“It was a great season,” he commented on 2015.” We were fast right out of the gate and could’v won both races, but had issues. But after that, things went smoothly and we won some races, led a bunch of laps and a fourth championship.”
While Steckly hasn’t solidified his personal plans, things are coming together for his 22 Racing team. He stated on Monday that Alex Tagliani will be back in 2016 after scoring four top-fives and nine top-10s in nine starts over the course of the previous season, including a dominating victory at Sunset Speedway. Tagliani will be joined on the team by western Canadian native Brett Taylor, who will run some of the road course races.
Getting ready to go to work! #NASCARcanada #representthewest pic.twitter.com/uNefa7VotC
— Brett Taylor (@brett_taylor46) December 1, 2015
With the announcement of the series entitlement sponsor, as well as knowledge that they will return to the streets of Toronto as part of Honda Indy Toronto weekend, certainly all the drivers are hoping that the plans together rather quickly now in the next couple of months.
