When Scott Gafforini is asked to describe his 2022 race season at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway Bullring, he says it “wasn’t anything special.”
“It was pretty mediocre,” Gafforini said. “It was just plugging along and just consistent finishes.”
The veteran driver didn’t win any races last season, but it didn’t matter. He was consistent enough to win a Las Vegas track championship in the venue’s Pro Late Model division. The title was his seventh at the NASCAR-sanctioned short track in Nevada, a record for any driver.
Consistency has been the key for Gafforini over the last 16 years since he won his first track championship. In that first title chase in 2006, he was down by two points going into the final race. He made up one point in qualifying and beat his competition on the last lap to come away with a title by one point.
“After the very first one year, it did get easier,” he said. “The first one always seems to be the hardest, because you’re trying so hard, and you don’t want to make mistakes, and you overthink it. Once you get the first one behind your belt, I think everybody takes a little sigh of relief, and you know what it takes to get there. I think it makes a big difference.”
From 2006-15, Gafforini won the Vegas track title six times, besting driver Phil Goodwin for the most track titles by any driver.
But after 2015, Gafforini hit a lull. He was stuck with consistent second-place finishes for seven years.
“It was always like one fast guy shows up and he’s pretty dominant, either he’s got a brand new car or a brand new team with a lot of money, and I’m just kind of a mediocre Saturday night racing guy,” he said. “I don’t have big finances. I just go out there and use old equipment that was once brand new.”
The string of seconds is what made last season’s title such a surprise to Gafforini. He said his equipment was out of date as Vegas switched from super late models to pro late models.
But, as the year started unfolding, he realized the team was at the top of the standings simply because “we showed up to every single race.”
“That counts because you’ve got to support your local race track,” he said. “We were there every single weekend duking it out, and we just supported the race track and were consistent. We had a top-five car. It wasn’t going to win, but it was still a top-five car, so we knew we could capture points that way.
“If you would have told me the first two races of last year I was going to win the championship, I would have laughed at you. … We just kept plugging along, and about halfway through the year, we were scratching our heads like, ‘Well, if nothing stupid happens, we might be able to pull this thing off.’ And we did.”
Gafforini learned his work ethic at a young age while hanging around racers and sweeping up the shop. He learned the importance of building your own car, no matter if “these guys are going out there and kicking butt or getting their butts kicked, whichever it may be.”
He started racing in 1980 when he got into a go-kart at 13 years old. He was successful in karts and eventually moved up to IMSA road racing, which he did until the short track at Vegas was built.
He started racing stock cars in 1998, but it took eight years before he would win his first title.
“I looked at myself and said, ‘I’m doing my very best, and I’m not getting the job done,’” he said. “I had to learn what it’s going to take to get that championship. Obviously, my very best isn’t enough to get a championship all these years. It’s came down to that one race, that very last race of the year, and I won it by one point… That’s when my very best just went up to a championship level.”
From there, the wins kept coming. He owns a Vegas track record 67 career wins.
“You just keep learning and learning and learning, and your very best becomes more and more and more,” he said. “And as your very best becomes more and more and more, the championships become easier and easier because your very best becomes more than what their very best is because they haven’t figured it out yet.”
Remembering those older drivers who built the sport is important to Gafforini, because, he said, without them, there wouldn’t be racing in the way it’s done now, and he would have never learned those lessons he needed to be successful, both on and off the track.
Gafforini is also hopeful young drivers learn from his legacy, as well, and keep it alive. His biggest lesson is, “It’s not that you did your best, you had to do what it took to get it done no matter what,” he said.
“You need to learn that in life anyhow. You have to show up, no matter what,” he said. “Even if you don’t think you’re going to win… you still show up and you do your very, very best. You don’t halfway do it.
“You want to do your very best, but you’ve also got to be smart enough to know if your very best isn’t going to be good enough. Don’t quit or don’t get disappointed. Figure out what it’s going to take to raise your very best up that extra notch or two… It’s important, and it pays off. It may not pay off immediately, but it will.”
Unlike the last decade when Gafforini and his team were just racing to race and see what happens, this season they are coming in looking for an eighth title. He has a new car, and he feels his updated technology and newly built equipment puts him on the same page as other successful drivers.
But, he plans to still be the same driver he’s been for the last 40 years, and hopefully young drivers take something away from watching his success.
“We’re definitely the people that rooted for the hometown, do-it-yourself racers, the grassroots racer. That’s us,” he said. “For us to go win a championship, that gives other people hope that you don’t need the big sponsorships, you don’t need the big team, you don’t need the 20-man crew. It’s just me, my dad, who is like 80-something years old, he doesn’t do quite too much anymore, and my two friends. That’s it.
“For the person who’s doing it out of their own pocket, doing it as a hobby, keep your chin up. You can still win races, you can still win championships… you can do it, and that’s what I’m for. That’s what I advocate for.”
On Feb. 18, Gafforini finished fourth in the Pro Late Model feature on The Bullring’s 2023 opening night. He did so after placing third in his heat race.
The Bullring’s season continues Saturday, March 4 with the Bash at The Bullring, a free-admission event.
