SPEEDWAY, Ind. — “It doesn’t ever get old.”
Steven Drevicki can confidently say that after achieving his record-extending sixth career USAC East Coast Sprint Cars Presented by Baer Den Farms driving championship in 2026.
In what was the closest points race in series history, Reading, Pennsylvania’s Drevicki claimed the title by a 28-point margin over Christian Bruno. The previous closest title fight (44 points) came during the series’ inaugural season in 2018 and had the very same driver standing at the top – Steven Drevicki.
Drevicki won the first three series crowns in 2018, 2019, and 2020. He has now achieved his second three-peat after grabbing the championship in 2024, 2025, and 2026, all six of which have come in his own No. 19.
For the 35-year-old Drevicki, winning races and championships never becomes old hat.
“It’s wild to think about six,” Drevicki reflected. “I don’t know that it’s even sunk in.”
Let this sink in. Drevicki achieved two feature victories, both at New Jersey’s Bridgeport Motorsports Park, to go along with a series high 11 top five finishes, plus top 10 results in all 12 of his feature starts during the 2026 campaign.
After chasing after the point lead for much of the season, Drevicki took over the top spot from Bruno with three races remaining, then capped the title with a 4th, a 1st, and a 6th in his final three outings of the year. For Drevicki, he admitted this quest was his most challenging yet, but still, he remained the one everybody else was chasing at the end of it all.
“This one was tougher,” Drevicki acknowledged. “The competition keeps getting tougher and tougher every year with where the series is at. The series is really going into a good direction. The level of competition took a big step up again this year and they kept the pressure on and that makes it cool to win them.”
Drevicki credits a midseason stretch to his success in which he delivered top five after top five from Pennsylvania to New Jersey, including a dominant wire-to-wire win at Bridgeport in August where he led all 25 laps. Good fortune was on his side in a September return to Bridgeport where he slid J.R. Fulper for the lead amid a three-car battle at the front of the pack with two laps remaining. Though he didn’t know it at the time, Fulper’s car soon began to stumble without fuel in the tank. As Drevicki quipped, “a little luck never hurts.”
Drevicki is a mechanical engineer by trade for the Industrial Crane Company, designing cranes, runways, and structures for various industries. He is a graduate of Penn State University’s Mechanical Engineering department and grew up in a racing family. His father, Dave, raced karts, late models, and micros, and later crewed on a sprint car driven by Buzz Sassaman.
Steven started his career behind the wheel of quarter midgets in 2000 before advancing to micros and then to midgets where he was a two-time American Racing Drivers Club titlist in 2014 and 2015. Drevicki estimated that he’s been at a racetrack pretty much every weekend since he was five years old, fostering a love of racing handed down from his parents, Dave and Stephanie, whose home the family-run race shop is stabled in.
“My mom and dad have been huge supporters throughout my entire racing career,” Drevicki praised. “I wouldn’t be where I am without all of their support through the years. I basically own the team, more or less, myself. Dad helps where he can, but it’s pretty much my team. Scott (Gantert) has been helping on the crew for 17 years. We raced micros together for a while, and then in 2010, when I got going, he started helping me. It doesn’t get any easier to do this, but we do what we can and have fun with it, for sure.”
For Drevicki, it’s the people along the way who make this sport special to him, and he credits longtime supporters DeGre Engineering, Roadrunner Race Fuels, Fastener Specialties, Fastlane Jewelry, BDB Graphics, NAPA of Birdsboro, Pennsylvania, RPM Chassis, and Penske Shocks as the main reasons he’s been fortunate enough to achieve six USAC East Coast championships, 21 feature wins, and just about everything else they’ve been able to accomplish over the years.
“When you think about that part, most of the sponsors and people that I’ve been with have been with me for 10 years in one capacity or another. They’re not sponsors; they’re friends at this point. To keep those relationships and that support structure around me intact for that long is really special to me.”
