Let's Talk Tickler: Spotlight on Dirt Modified Driver "The High Side Tickler" Kyle Strickler
All it takes to get from the Stock Car Steel/SRI facility to the headquarters of Kyle Strickler Motorsports (KSM) is two right turns; one out of the parking lot and one onto Wilkinson Road. Strickler is a very familiar customer at Stock Car Steel and SRI, as Strickler and his crew members are seen at the warehouse on a near-daily basis. After picking up a few pieces of material and a handful of shop supplies, Strickler makes those two right turns and gets back to work. His Modified cars navigate the left turns of clay oval tracks all over the Southeast and beyond. The path to a successful weekend on the dirt tracks begins on Mondays in Mooresville, North Carolina, where KSM, Stock Car Steel, and SRI all call home.
"The High Side Tickler" Kyle Strickler is having a stellar season racing Modifieds. While his team is a winning fixture at Carolina Speedway in Gastonia, NC on Friday nights, he also has victories at the Talladega Short Track, Bubba Raceway Park, County Line, Cherokee, East Lincoln, Beckley, and I-77, and that's just in 2012 alone.
At the age of ten years old, Strickler began his winning ways by racing go-karts out of his hometown of Sinking Springs, Pennsylvania. He graduated from go-karts with 17 career wins and moved onto running Sportsman Modifieds on the dirt tracks of the Northeast. He naturally progressed to Big Block Modified racing, and he picked up Rookie of the Year honors at Delaware Speedway in 2001. After proving he was a force to be reckoned with on the open-wheel circuits of his home region, Kyle moved to North Carolina in January of 2006 in order to make a career out of racing.
Strickler's career really took off in 2010 when he took home 23 winner's trophies and the track championship at East Lincoln Speedway in Stanley, NC, all while driving the house car for Harris Auto Racing. While his stats are becoming more impressive with every racing season, a lot of folks wonder how Strickler got one of the best nicknames in racing. "Well, it (his nickname) used to be 'The High Side Flyer' but one night the guys from Harris were enjoying a few adult beverages and we covered up my name on the car with 'The High Side Tickler' written on a piece of masking tape," Stricker recalls. "I won a race at Lancaster on May 22nd 2010 and a guy from Harris, Tom Hughley, grabbed the mic in victory lane and introduced me as 'The High Side Tickler.'" Not long after, Strickler was permanently branded with his catchy nickname.
When Strickler isn't working for his own racing program, he is a body fabricator at Wolf-Pack Racing and Highside Fabrication, the latter being his own body hanging business. Strickler became an expert fabricator by working for noteworthy NASCAR organizations such as Robby Gordon Motorsports and Rusty Wallace Incorporated. During NASCAR driver David Gilliland's rise to the Cup series, Strickler was part of the Hype Manufacturing team that took Gilliland to his first victory in the Nationwide Series. That 2006 race at Kentucky Speedway is regarded as one of the biggest upsets in series history.
Strickler now considers the Charlotte, NC area to be his home, and if he could only race on one track for the rest of his life, it would be the Dirt Track at Charlotte. His most memorable win came there in 2011 when he outran Kenny Schrader for the victory, and he fondly remembers that Stock Car Steel and SRI were on his car as sponsors for the first time that night.
Strickler jokes that if he could have any sponsor in the world, it would be a brewing company. "We're big supporters of those (beer) companies after winning the races," he says laughing. With his current season going so well, he may need one of those sponsors to come on board.
While his motto is "Eat, sleep, breathe, race," Strickler enjoys relaxing with his fiancé, Brittany, and one-year-old daughter Madison. He enjoys watching the Carolina Panthers and Philadelphia Eagles in the NFL, which goes to show that he hasn't forgotten his Pennsylvania roots.
Strickler and the KSM team look to return to Carolina Speedway this coming Friday, but not before making a couple more mile-long trips to Stock Car Steel and SRI.
Stock Car Steel & Aluminum, Inc. (founded 1996) is a full-line steel and service center. Based in Mooresville, North Carolina, it offers an extremely large and very diverse metals and plastics product line. With fantastic prices, no minimum order requirements, quality packaging and lightning fast shipping, it caters to your every need.
SRI - Supplies for Racing & Industry was founded in Concord, NC in 1997. It was purchased and incorporated in April of 2002 by Greg Fornelli. Fornelli, who also owns Stock Car Steel & Aluminum, moved the business to Mooresville, NC where the two businesses currently share a distribution facility. SRI has everything from Military Spec fasteners to Bondo. Their product line is based on the needs of race shop personnel working in Fab Shops, Body Shops, Chassis Shops and Engine Shops.
www.stockcarsteel.com
www.sri-supplies.com
