With seven feature top-five’s and nine heat wins, it is safe to say the 2023 season was very successful for Tegan Stanley at Peterborough Speedway. Of course, everybody will remember August 5 when he picked up his first career feature victory.

Here is the rest of the interview with the driver of the No. 23 Honda.

Why did you want to get started in racing originally?

I’d loved cars for as long as I can remember. Like my very first model was a Honda Civic, so I’ve always had a sweet spot for them. Then I went to the race track and was a pit crew for Victor Vowels and I was a crew member of his for four or five weekends. I babysat his kids for him. So the second that he gave me the opportunity to think about buying a car, I had to jump on it immediately.

I ended up moving a fellow racer’s car actually, Sean Dunford. He was just joking around, “5omeone go get my car.” So I said I would do it, and I had never driven a car before. I think I was 14. He said okay and threw my dad the keys and told my dad, “Teach me how to drive” as it was stick. So I knew very little – the basics of the basics, and just kind of what he explained to me. So my dad gave me a rundown and I pulled it into the stall beside Victor.

That night, I looked at mom and said I wanted to buy a racecar. She said, “No, you’re crazy, you’re too young.” I said, “Well, let’s make it happen,” and I had a bit of money saved up and Victor ended up having Rhonda. He had the hatchback that was about to go to scrap that weekend. I asked him how much he wanted for it, and he said, “$300.” We ended up making a deal and hit it off.

Who would you consider as your racing hero?

I don’t really know if I have a racing hero. The one guy that I look up the most is probably Tyler Junkin. He is an amazing driver. He’s a great guy to talk to, one of the smartest guy. His knowledge is crazy. I can sit down and pick his brain forever. I actually did co-op with him and he probably got pretty annoyed with me because I kept asking him questions, the same questions, but every time it was a different answer or a variation of the answer.

When I think of success, I think of him. That’s your success in racing when you have a car that you can pull out at any point and go win with it. The same car – you don’t have to constantly change it, even if it’s out-dated. You’re so comfortable and were so fast with that car that it’s still a competitive car.

You’re obviously three years in as you mentioned previously focusing on the bone stocks, learning and getting better. But down the road, what division would you like to possibly try?

We’ve been talking about possibly going up a class in the mini stocks. We were going to possibly try it this year, and then with time lined up and I ended up getting a street car instead because we made the decision to stay in bone stock for possibly one last year. With everything going good this season, who knows what next season will bring.

But we were talking about possibly going to mini stocks because there’s so much more that we can do and I really like the fine tuning of cars. So to be able to move up to a mini stock would open a whole new platform for me.

We’ve talked about maybe trying seeing if we can rent a late model or super stock for a night to just try that side of racing – front wheel drive vs high horsepower rear wheel drive. It’s quite a different beast. I would personally hop in any car if someone says here’s a night to try it. I wouldn’t hesitate even the slightest bit. But as far as plans to buy a super stock or late model, they are not there yet, but not necessarily wouldn’t be there if I didn’t have the opportunity.

There’s been chassis and stuff that I’ve seen posted and had thoughts of getting and doing something cool with. But I like the Hondas, and the four-cylinders, and how close that racing is. They’re a little bit more – I won’t say laid back, but people get a little less upset when you bend a front bumper on a $5,000 car compared to a $50,000 car.

That’s obviously the difference – money. My sponsors are great and we put so much money towards the bone stock, but the amount of money difference is castrotrophic when you go from a bone stock to a late model. That would be insane to jump and switch out. It’d be more or less a five year plan to make sure we have a competitive late model or even just a late model in general.

What would be a piece of advice that you would give to the next rookie out there based off of your experience these past couple seasons?

The best advice that I can give a rookie is to not be afraid to drive the car, because everybody has to drive the car. The biggest problem that I’ve noticed with rookies, even in myself, when you go out for the first practice and the car feels good and you feel confident, and then all of sudden you do a rookie move and you get a little too confident.

My first practice – I spun on the outside of somebody, came down and ended up wrecking the front end of my car and her car. We both made it out for the races that night, but that was a result of me getting a little overzealous. So I do recommend that rookies stay away from other cars as much as possible and just focus on doing what you’re comfortable with and making sure you’re doing it right.

My biggest thing with rookies is holding the line. That was my biggest thing when I was doing it. When I drove every practice, I knew I was getting slowly faster and faster and doing better – but I always asked my veteran drivers if I was doing something wrong. That was the first thing I did when I got off the track. I went and talked to Sean Solomon so much and he helped me so much and I made sure I was always out of the way, giving lots of room, braked early – I wasn’t trying to race the leaders when I was getting lapped or laps down.

I always made sure I was out of the way. There was no problems with me being on the track. I wasn’t an issue. That’s my biggest thing is there are rookies that don’t quite understand that. There’s always going to be somebody that’s faster and trying to race them when you’re laps down is not helping – if anything, it’s making it dangerous. So the best thing I can say is make sure you’re comfortable with the car, the line, and make sure you’re aware of your surroundings.

Everybody is going fast – it’s racing. The fastest wins 60% of the time so you have to make sure that you’re out of the way and you’re not causing any trouble. Don’t block the leaders. That’s how things get dangerous.