While taking in the sights of this exciting newfound sport of midget auto racing, Steele took a liking to Al Silver. Silver was a popular driver at the track with his blue number seven machine, and was famous for his late-race surges into the lead, often remaining patient until the closing laps.
“I fell in love with midget racing right away,” Steele remembers with a smile. “Al Silver was my hero. After that, blue was my favorite color and seven was my favorite number.”
Steele was born in Portsmouth, Virginia on June 2, 1940. The family relocated several times while Mac was a child as his father moved in search of work during World War II, finding temporary jobs, including a position in a torpedo factory in St. Louis, Missouri for a short time. They moved briefly to Tampa, Florida in 1948, before heading back north once again. A return to Tampa finally saw the family finally settle in for good, and Mac still resides there to this day.
Steele‘s mechanical involvement with the sport started shortly after his trips to the Akron midget races. “When I was in the third grade, I had a sprint car-looking thing that was similar to a soap box derby car. It was much heavier than a soap box derby car. The main frame rail was a two-by-four. To steer it, you had to use a rope to the front axle and you had to pull the rope to steer it. It had canvas stretched over it for the body. I messed around with that for a short time.
“I started going to the races here locally in Tampa shortly after. Speedway Park was really a nice place here in Tampa. It was a half-mile dirt track. Phillips Field was in downtown Tampa; it was Tampa University‘s football field and had a pavement track around the outside of it.
For a short time during his teenage years, he explored drag racing. “Growing up, in high school it was drag racing. I couldn‘t afford to have a race car and a car you drive on the street too,” he explains. “Whatever you drove around, you souped it up a little and ran it at the drag strip.
“The same summer I graduated high school, I got thrown in jail for drag racing on the street,” he shares with a laugh. “Me and my buddy got caught by the Highway Patrol. The patrolman had us handcuffed together in the front seat of a 1957 Ford Highway Patrol car. As we‘re sitting at a traffic light headed to the county jail in downtown Tampa, somebody peeled off around the corner. Here we go. The guy flips on his siren and red light, and me and by buddy are sitting in the front seat, and we‘re chasing this guy who burned rubber from a stop light. They didn‘t take him to jail, he just got a ticket.
It was during his years in drag racing that Steele discovered a fascination with engine building. “I‘ve always built my own motors. Like anybody starting out, they weren‘t that successful in the beginning. You learn by mistakes. I never had anybody, mechanically, or interested in race cars around here to serve as a mentor to keep me going in the right direction.”
His foray into sprint car racing began shortly after he got married in the early 1970‘s. “The buddy I went to jail with, Bruce Everitt, was a fireman. One day his wife told me he was helping another fireman he worked with that had a sprint car. She said, ‘You should go over there,‘ and I did. Ultimately, I bought that car.
“The car came from Indiana. It was from a guy named Mark Caldwell up there. It didn‘t have power steering or anything. I would go help them. Steve Moore, the guy who owned the car, got this brainstorm idea that he was gonna go to Las Vegas and win a lot of money. He needed money to go. He says, ‘I‘ll sell you this car for $2,500, but when I get back from Las Vegas you have to sell it back to me.‘ I figured when he goes to Las Vegas he isn‘t coming back with any money, nobody ever does, and the car would be mine.