I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing Matt Carter, son of long time NASCAR Crew Chief and Cup Team Owner Travis Carter, several times. And each time I do I come away even more convinced that this young man should have long since had a quality ride with a top performing team and sponsor. All the qualifications are there. He is experienced, talented, young, extremely dedicated, well spoken and just what any sponsor could want in a driver, both in and out of the car. I don’t get it but if I were a company looking to break in to NASCAR racing I would definitely look at investing in this young man. Why? Because he is just the type of spokesperson I would want endorsing my company’s product…hard working, dedicated, experienced, talented, and understands how to represent his sponsors the way they expect their spokesperson to.
I spoke with him last week following his NASCAR Nationwide Series run at Atlanta. Matt is usually relegated to doing start and parks, something he absolutely despises doing, but, he hopes by doing so he is keeping his name “out there” while paying some bills. And for this Atlanta race he was able to obtain enough sponsorship to run the entire race.
I try not to do Q&As, especially with someone like Matt. Instead I will, as I always do with him, let him speak so adequately for himself.
“My last race before this race was literally one year ago, 365 days, when I raced at Atlanta. I don’t know why I have so much trouble doing this, racing, but I’m still here trying and I’m going to keep on trying. I have been around racing my whole life. I did some other things before I started racing but I was around the shop a lot, the race tracks and the ins and outs of the Winston Cup Series at a high level. It wasn’t just a ho hum, thrown together operation in somebody’s back yard. It was a multi million dollar operation, a 2 car Winston Cup team that I was fortunate enough to be able to be around that. This race at Atlanta was a last minute deal. The team owner of #39 Go Green Racing didn’t have a driver or a sponsor and called to ask me if I would be interested in going down there and running the race. The situation was that they needed to go down there, finish the race, not take any chances and stay out of trouble.”
“Archie St. Hilaire, the owner of the #39 Go Green Racing team called me to see if I’d be interested and I said yeah, absolutely I would. At least this time it was for running the whole race even if I wasn’t going to be able to get up there and race everybody all night. And anytime you’re running laps you’re getting experience and getting better. They can’t afford to go down there and tear up a car. They’re a smaller team. They do a really good job with what they have and their budget, probably the best in the garage with the budget they have. That’s the same team that gave me the opportunity to drive at Atlanta last year. This race was a last minute deal. The team owner didn’t have a driver or a sponsor and called to ask me if I would be interested in going down there and running the race. The situation was that we needed to go down there, finish the race and not take any chances and stay out of trouble. They can’t afford to go down there and tear up a car. They’re a smaller team. They do a really good job with what they have and their budget, probably the best in the garage with the budget they have. That’s the same team that gave me the opportunity to drive at Atlanta last year.
“Another reason I want to race is so I can go out there and spread the word about The Lone Survivor Foundation. It’s very important to me. As an American citizen who is 31 years old and with these 2 wars that have gone on for the last 10 or 11 years men and women have been going over there fighting and serving their country and when all that fighting started they were the same age I was. I decided to pursue racing. That’s what I wanted to do while these people decided to serve and fight for their country. I think now we need do all we can do to try to help them when they return home. It’s a bad situation for the soldiers and their families. This foundation is based in Houston, Texas and was founded by retired Navy Seal Petty Officer 1st Class Marcus Lutrell. I found out about The Lone Survivor Foundation by reading one of his books on the New York Times best seller list called Lone Survivor. His story is pretty amazing with what he and people like him have gone through. He started this foundation to help people like himself. The Lone Survivor Foundation takes them and their families out to a ranch for a week to get away from everything, reunite them with each other and kind of a breath of fresh air experience, a no stress deal. I think it’s important and I’m trying to help.”
“Also Kill Cliff came on board for that race. It’s a sports recovery, anti inflammation drink. I’ve been using this drink and it actually does help. It’s available for purchase on their website. They’re based in Atlanta and the drink is available in some stores but you will have to check on their website. Actually it is supposed to become available in all GNC stores in a few months. They actually support a lot of military foundations. Their founder was also a Navy Seal. I found them through the Lone Survivor Foundation because they support that foundation as well. I thought it was a good fit for us, as well. It was a good weekend with the NRA American Warrior 300 and we had some military people there so it gave me a chance to help present their brand to the people they wanted to meet and to continue to spread the word about The Lone Survivor Foundation. They’re fairly new. They’ve been around about 2 years and it takes a while for things like that to catch on. My goal is racing, obviously. And if I’m going to go racing I want to be able to help The Love Survivor Foundation and other military foundations to give back to them. They’ve done a lot for each of us so that’s my goal and plan. I know they’re are people that feel the same way I do and I’m looking for them and hoping we can help each other.”
I asked him to speak about his father and how he feels racing has changed since his father retired. “I think the way my Dad went about doing business with people, the way he treated people rubbed off on me. There really needs to be more people like him in this sport now. There are really a lot of self serving, very egotistical, back stabbing people in this sport today. I kind of went off on a little tangent right there but there’s always been that type of thing in racing, now more so than ever.”
There are so many teams vying for the same sponsorship dollars which makes it even tougher for drivers and owners to find and lock down that financing, “and I’m not going to make myself that kind of person. Everything comes back around eventually. I have told people and I’ve told my Dad that I think he was too good to people, too honest and I think as far as some of this stuff goes, that may have hurt him a little bit. So I tell people the truth, what the (racing) reality is because eventually they’re going to find out anyway so I don’t see any reason to lie to people about racing. I won’t feed them a bunch of bull all the time like I see so many other people do. Maybe that’s hurt me as far as going out and finding sponsors or talking to team owners. I’ve heard of drivers telling owners they’ve got sponsorship, they’ve got the money in the bank and then they get signed up to drive this guy’s racecar and then they don’t pay. So the owner’s stuck for the bills the driver was suppose to pay and the driver had no intention of ever paying. That’s what’s been going on and is still going on and I’m just not going to do that.”
“And the cost of racing is like everything else, higher than it’s ever been and I don’t see that ever changing until you get to the point where you have probably 4 owners with about 20 cars racing each other every week. People have been trying to say that for years and it just keeps on getting worse and worse. In early 2000 or so racing really took off and all the Cups owners, everybody was getting money. Sponsors and corporate money from around the world wanted to get involved. And now it’s just outgrown itself. Now some owners have built all these big shops, they’ve got 15 houses, the driver’s have got 10 houses, there’s 4 airplanes, 5 motor coaches and it’s just been spend, spend, spend, spend. Now they have to keep up with all of it. They need 2 or 3 hundred employees. One who works one certain job in the shop and gets $100,000 for a job that used to pay $50,000. That’s all good and well for them but for the average racer I’m just saying the cost of everything has gotten ridiculous.”
And I mentioned to Matt that with every televised race more and more empty grandstand seats are being seen. There are just too many now to avoid the cameras. So many fans just can’t pay those tickets prices with some tracks requiring (or have required in the recent past) season ticket purchases. And the less seats sold the less profit the track owners receive. It’s a vicious cycle. It’s like Matt said, “everything has gotten ridiculous.”
I feel like Matt is a breath of genuine, fresh racing air. He isn’t negative. You’re reading racing as he honestly sees it through his experiences. In this day and age it’s easy to confuse the two but that’s what makes Matt a unique catch for a quality team and sponsor, both on and off the track. He is a combination of the high quality, old school way of doing things with the new school age of technology, hard work and all the dedication it takes to succeed. Combine this with straight talk, racing savvy, appreciation, talent and the fact that he has 2 complete race shops available for use for the right owner/sponsor willing to sign him and this seems like common, good business sense all rolled in to one driver. This sport needs a young driver like this.
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Check out The Lone Survivor Foundation at www.lonesurvivorfoundation.org and Kill Cliff at www.killcliff.com. And to learn more about Matt visit his website at www.mattcarterracing.com. Also you can connect with Matt on facebook. Look for Matt Carter Fan Page.
Good luck Matt. We’re watching and pulling for you.
