Myatt Snider is one driver who is happy that the Championship Auto Racing Series (CARS) Late Model Stock Tour finale has been moved up to Saturday night because he feels it will give him a day to celebrate.
Snider, the 20-year-old son of NBC Sports reporter Marty Snider, enters the Late Model Stock Car portion of Saturday night’s Liberty University 300 presented by Southern National Motorsports Park at Hickory Motor Speedway with a three point advantage over Brayton Haws and Deac McCaskill.
“I’ve been preparing for it since the start of the season,” Snider said. “I think we have what it takes. Our team has been driving really well lately. I like that. Seems to be going well for us. We’ve never had a better shot than we do now. Concord went really well. We have been fast as of late. Now is a better time than ever. With the sped we’ve had, I think things are going to bode really well for us. I’m going to get all the fans all hyped up and everything to make it an energetic environment. That will help out everything. Overall, I’m really confident about this weekend.”
So far, Snider has been winless on the season, but he knows that, given Brayton Haws’ success at Hickory Motor Speedway, he may have to win the race to win the championship. He feels confident he can do just that. In fact, he prepared for the race by heading to Hickory Motor Speedway last weekend to compete in the Fall Brawl.
“It’s not that any factors of anyone’s driving, it’s that the points are close that I need to win,” Snider remarked. “We were really fast last week at Hickory. Had a small issue which was good, it allowed us to save the car for this race. It’s going to perform well, I can tell.”
When the season began, Snider was not one of the drivers who was expected to be in the thick of the championship battle, nevertheless leading the points entering the finale. He had only scored three career Late Model Stock Car victories prior to this season. While winless on the season, Snider has progressed tremendously as a driver and has shown incredible consistency all season long.
“I mean, we’ve been the most consistent team all season,” Snider commented. “I don’t think I’ve been in a wreck other than Orange County and we’ve finished every single lap of the season. Haven’t been as big on bonus points as I hoped to have been. Capitalized on it at Concord. Overall, this team has been incredibly consistent and that’s been a major factor in me being in the lead going into the final round. I think that, even if we don’t get a win which I doubt will happen, we’ll still be second or third and maybe lead some laps.
“It’s going to be hard for my competitors to get around me or deal with me in the race. Not that I’ll race them rough, it’s that I’m going to make it hard to pass me.”
While Snider has shown more patience throughout the season, he has also been aggressive when needed, primarily at the end of races. That aggression has not sat well with either of his championship rivals at times throughout the season. Snider and Haws have traded paint on several occasions throughout the season, which has left Haws with some sour feelings after some of the races – most recently at Myrtle Beach Speedway back in September.
“I had been ahead of [Brayton] most of the night,” Snider commented. “He made a run where I stayed where I was with tires and he eventually fell back because of it. He was behind me by two or three positions. He got next to me towards the end. I was stuck on the inside lane and he was on the outside which was running quicker. We were side by side going in the last corner. I rolled it in as deep as it would go and took away Brayton’s line. That’s just hard racing. If he wants to be mad about it, that’s his choice but I can guarantee he would’ve done the same thing if he was in my shoes.”
Snider has also had a couple run-ins with Deac McCaskill. At Tri-County, Snider admittedly made an error which cost both he and McCaskill a shot at the win. Then, at Concord, McCaskill spun when trying to get past Snider. After the Concord race, McCaskill fumed about the incident, referring to Snider as a “spoiled rotten kid” who doesn’t have to work on the cars.
“Tri-County is the only one I think that I legitimately messed up in,” Snider explained. “I just made a simple mistake driving in too deep. After Concord, Deac was just a little mad because we had tensions after the Tri-County race. It didn’t look like it was my fault. I just tried to drive it in the corner. If you watch the slow motion replay, you can see he really drove it down there. I didn’t try to cut down on him. He just ended up spinning himself out in my opinion.
“That’s racing. It’s unfortunate that it turned out that way but that’s racing.”
The incidents that have taken place among the championship contenders fuels speculation as to whether Haws or McCaskill may retaliate against Snider in Saturday night’s race and send him home with a trick instead of a treat. Snider is not worried about the prospect of retaliation from his rivals and feels that cooler heads will prevail.
“I feel like, I talked to Deac after Myrtle Beach about the Concord race,” Snider stated. He thought he rolled up to my door but, if you watch the replay, his nose was barely crossing my bumper. I told him I didn’t want to race like that. He seemed to kind of agree. It was just ,the biggest thing I can say is, I hope cooler heads prevail and Deac is a cool headed racer most of the time. Some times he can be aggressive but you have to be aggressive. We’ll race clean most of the night. Towards the end, things could get hairy.”
Along with holding the points lead, Snider has scored five top-five finishes and nine top-10 finishes in the nine races run so far this season. If he wins the championship on Saturday night, it will be his first Late Model championship of any kind. After the CARS Tour finale, Snider plans to race in the UNOH Battle at the Beach at Myrtle Beach Speedway on November 21st and in the Thanksgiving All-Star Classic at Southern National Motorsports Park on November 29th.
