CONCORD, N.C. - The No. 17 HendrickCars.com team's NASCAR Xfinity Series victory in Austin, Texas, was a major source of pride for the organization. The triumph for secondary spotter Nick Steger was a "full circle moment."
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Steger has worn many hats during his racing career and the win at Circuit of The Americas (COTA) was just the latest example. In the early 2000s, he served as the plate leader for Ricky Hendrick's Xfinity Series car and was responsible for hanging the car bodies to each chassis. He traveled to most races to assist the team at the race track.
Twenty years later, Steger was helping to navigate a similar red, white and blue paint scheme around the track through turns 5 to 11 at the 20-turn road course.
"I was telling people, I felt like it came full circle," Steger said as he watched the No. 17 roll through his section for the first time. "When Ricky (Hendrick) started running the Pro Cup and Busch (Series, now known as the Xfinity Series) cars, we built all those for him too."
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Steger's NASCAR journey took him to several teams and brought him back to Hendrick Motorsports in the 2015 season, where he has worked primarily with the No. 9 NASCAR Cup Series team in recent years. This season, the Fairfax, Virginia, native took on a new role for select races. No. 9 crew chief Alan Gustafson asked Steger to be a secondary spotter at tracks that require it (typically road courses). The deal would also include several races as a secondary spotter (when needed) for the No. 17 entry in the Xfinity Series. The first of those races came last Saturday at COTA.
Kyle Larson's road to victory was set up by a fortuitous strategy and great patience, but the spotters had to help him navigate two restarts in the closing five laps as a battle for the lead took place ahead. Steger's work was done in the corners leading up to the last-lap race-winning pass. With the track being 3.41 miles long, he could not see the finish and it took him a minute to figure out the team's final finishing order.
PHOTOS: See scenes from the victory for Larson and the No. 17 team
"He (Larson) was catching him (the No. 97 car of Shane van Gisbergen) into turn 12 and I was thinking he'd finish second or third," said Steger when recounting the final lap of the race. "I heard the pass and I thought he just made one pass. I guess he did make one pass, but it was at the same time (to get both cars). He was excited. I was assuming he finished second."
"Everybody kept saying stuff on the radio and I was like, 'I think he might have won.'"
Once the results were confirmed, the reality of the accomplishment set in. The victory was Hendrick Motorsports' first in the Xfinity Series since 2009 and the first time the group had won in the division on a road course. The organization had not fielded a car in the Xfinity ranks from 2010 to 2021 and has been running a partial schedule since 2022. Steger's real joy was seeing those familiar colors in victory lane.
"I was telling my wife; it tore my heart," Steger said. "When you think back on everything and it comes full circle, it was pretty cool."