Like father, like son?
In some ways, the racing careers of Scott and Scotty Gardner have certainly had that two-peas-in-a-pod flavor.
Both started out at local tracks as street stock competitors who very quickly became top contenders. And the Blue Island natives had a couple of unique achievements together at Grundy County Speedway.
Scott won the street stock title in 2021. Scotty did it — with dad finishing second — in 2022.
On Illinois State Championship Night in 2022, Scott won the first feature while Scotty won the second and earned the overall event title.
However, these days, Scotty is taking the Gardner Racing Team to places that dad never did. Or as Scotty puts it …
.
“We keep making wrong turns and ending up at different race tracks,” Gardner said, laughing.
Scotty pops in occasionally at Grundy, but is a regular with the traveling Mid-Am Racing Series.
He was victorious May 31 at Tomah Sparta Speedway in Wisconsin. He also led the field June 16 in the next series event at the Milwaukee Mile but was disqualified over a carburetor issue.
This past weekend, he went racing on the dirt and finished third at Kankakee Speedway and fifth at Sycamore Speedway.
Dad serves as one of his crew members and advisors.
“I’m having a blast,” Scott Gardner said. “I’m beyond proud of Scotty. Just with all of the sponsorships that go to him because of his driving ability is absolutely amazing.
“I taught him the basics, and he took it to the next level. Scotty is not scared to try anything on the car to make it faster. He’s never been a quitter in anything that he’s ever done.”
Scott Gardner raced at Raceway Park from 1991 until 2000. He won 30 career feature races and took the track title in Raceway’s last season. He then raced more or less on a part-time basis at Illiana Speedway while raising Scotty with his wife, Kathy.
Scotty was pretty young when he caught the racing bug.
“I asked him to go racing when I was 10 years old,” he said. “The smartest thing he did was keep me out of racing until I got out of high school.
“I wanted a bandolero, but he shut the idea down. I stuck with baseball, football, basketball, soccer, swimming, every sport you could think of. But he never forced me to do anything, which was cool.”
Scotty took his first laps in a race car at age 18.
“The day I turned 18, I hot-lapped his car at Grundy,” Gardner said. “I spun out three times and said, ‘All right, I’m ready.’ And we started building a race car.”
Very humbly, I must say.
“I started out with my Tahoe, an open trailer and a bucket of Home Depot tools,” Gardner said. “You’d look around and they had nice RVs and a big trailer. But I worked my tail off to do this stuff.
“Now, we’re well-respected when our team comes together. But it’s crazy where we came from.”
Scotty won his first street stock feature in 2021 in a three-wide battle across the finish line with veterans Randy Weese and Eddie Ligue. Dad, meanwhile, was right behind them in fourth.
Scott Gardner, 47, would win the street stock championship at Grundy that season. A year later, Scotty, 21, would win the title, with dad finishing second.
“Oh, that was cool,” Scotty said. “I have two memorable things with my dad. One is when we won back-to-back features in the same night. But winning that championship (in 2021), when he pulled up next to me and we started burning it down on the front stretch wall in front of the fans, that was probably the coolest.”
I’m sure he isn’t the only one who thinks that.
Gotta say, great job, dad.
Tony Baranek is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.
