Tyler Matthews enters the season finale at Carteret County Speedway with a 25-point advantage over defending track champion Chris Burns as he is poised to clinch the track championship on Saturday night.
Matthews, 20, from Richlands, North Carolina won the track championship at Southern National Motorsports Park in 2016 and has set the standard in Late Model racing in Eastern North Carolina. This season, he has dominated at Carteret County Speedway, winning six races and appears destined to win another North Carolina track championship.
“It’s been pretty cool to have this amount of success in the short time we’ve been doing this,” Matthews said. “In three years, we have won Rookie of the Year, a state championship and a track championship, hopefully two as of Saturday. We have had a lot of success working with Doug Barefoot and have come a long wat together and Wes Burton has been a big help getting us on track so fast.”
Carteret County Speedway has been good to Matthews during the past two years. On top of his six wins so far, this season, Matthews picked up a victory last summer at Carteret County Speedway and was poised to win a second race at the 4/10-mile track.
“Carteret has always been a good track to me,” Matthews remarked. “We have only finished outside the top-three when we have been caught up in some wrecks.”
This weekend, however, Matthews will be in a different car as he looks to lock up the 2017 NASCAR Whelen All-American Series Division I Late Model track championship at Carteret County Speedway. After an accident totaled his car two weeks ago, he will be driving a car normally piloted by Tyler Horne on Saturday night.
“I couldn’t do this without the help of Tyler Horne,” Matthews explained. “He is letting me drive his car for the last race of the season. We will see if we can’t pick up a win and build on some momentum heading into the last two races of the season.”
Entering Saturday night’s Halloween Mayhem race at Carteret County Speedway, which will feature a 60 lap race for the Late Model Stock Car division, Matthews leads Chris Burns by 25 points. Eric Winslow, who will not compete on Saturday, is third in points while Tyler Horne and Michael Tilley round out the top-five.
Saturday night’s Halloween Mayhem at Carteret County Speedway is scheduled to go green at 7pm.
