By Richie Murray
Speedway, Indiana (October 5, 2025)………Steve Phillips, who earned 19 career wins as a USAC National Sprint Car team owner for drivers Dave Darland and Jason McDougal between 2013-2019, passed away on October 4, 2025. He was 70 years old.
Phillips’ black No. 71p won several marquee events in USAC competition over the years, namely with Darland. Together, they achieved 17 series victories, starting with the Larry Rice Classic in 2013 at Indiana’s Bloomington Speedway.
In fact, Darland’s winningest USAC National Sprint Car campaign came in his first season with the Phillips team, winning seven times in total, which included Sprint Car Smackdown at Indiana’s Kokomo Speedway and the Oval Nationals at California’s Perris Auto Speedway.
Together, Darland and Phillips won the final night of Smackdown in three consecutive years between 2013-2014-2015. During the 2014 Smackdown, it was Phillips’ car in which Darland drove when he became the all-time winningest driver in USAC National Sprint Car history with his 53rd score. The record has since been surpassed.
Also in 2014, Phillips and Darland won six more times, including the Tony Hulman Classic at Indiana’s Terre Haute Action Track. During their final season together in 2015, they added four more victories to their USAC win total.
In 2018, Phillips, alongside his wife, Carla, returned to USAC National Sprint Car victory lane with driver Jason McDougal who scored at Missouri’s I-55 Raceway, then in 2019, tallied one more at New Jersey’s Bridgeport Motorsports Park, which was the last victory to date for the team.
In all, Phillips’ team made 260 USAC National Sprint Car feature starts between 2010-2025 with drivers Clinton Boyles, Shane Cockrum, Jerry Coons Jr., Shane Cottle, Dave Darland, Justin Grant, Darren Hagen, Jason McDougal, Cannon McIntosh, Billy Puterbaugh Jr., Carson Short, Mike Spencer, Stevie Sussex and Kody Swanson. Most recently, during the 2025 season, the team made eight series starts with Rookie Chelby Hinton.
Born and raised in Phoenix, Phillips was a racer himself, competing as a driver in sprint cars and midgets in his native Arizona. In his Rookie season of 1977, he scored his first career midget feature victory at Manzanita Speedway. In 1990, he captured the Sprint Car Owners Association driving championship.
During the 1990s, Steve moved to Texas, then to Indiana while taking on a new full-time job as a mechanic for the Hall-VDS Racing Indy Car team, which fielded cars for the likes of John Andretti, Teo Fabi and Gil de Ferran.
A member of the Arizona Motorsports Hall of Fame, Phillips also made 13 starts as a USAC Silver Crown team owner with a driver list featuring Billy Puterbaugh Jr., Matt Goodnight, Dave Darland and Jason McDougal. The team’s best result was a fourth with Darland during the 4-Crown Nationals at Rossburg, Ohio’s Eldora Speedway in 2017.