DOB: May 05, 1981
Hometown: Newport News, VA
Home track: Langley Speedway
Occupation: Paint dept. Team Leader at Liebherr Mining Equipment

Sponsors: Performance Wraps, The Jagged Edge hair salon

 

 

Everyone has that one moment in their life where the light bulb goes off and you know you want to get behind the wheel of a car. Back in the late 80’s to early 90’s my dad raced out there [Langley Speedway],” Carter said. “He raced the all American division as well as the Grandstocks, that was what done it in for me!”  Matt got bit by the bug so hard even you could catch him in the garage working on the car as much as he could even before school started. It was inevitable, Carter loved everything there was about racing, he knew that one day he would be racing something.

In 2006 you could find Matt working with along side Paul DeBolt on his #34 Late Model. Carter spent a lot of time learning the ends and outs of how different set ups worked on the cars. “Paul taught me a great amount about setups on a race car,” explained Carter. “Back in that time the big bar soft spring setups were pretty new to everyone. Working with Paul helped me understand and have some knowledge on how these setups worked.” It was the following year when Matt finally got to scratch the itch. Langley Speedway introduced what would end up being called the Wolfpack trucks, very limited rules on what you were allowed to run, their main focus was safety.

Matt told himself he was going to get an old Craftsman Truck, build her up, and run her at Langley so thats what he did. Practically buying himself a race ready truck he took it back to the shop and worked some magic on the motor and took it to the track. “Basically my first ever race car was a 700 HP craftsmen truck at Langley Speedway,” Said Carter. “I learned a lot of throttle control from the experience. At the end of the year the motor blew up and just didn’t have the money to fix it at the time so I ended up selling it.

During our conversation I had to ask Matt his thoughts on why he decided to go race in the modified division, was it a cheaper car, better racing, what drove him into that series and this is what he had to say.

“It was the rules. I’m a diehard ford guy. Ford doesn’t really make a good car for the Super Streets or the grandstocks so I decided to go Mod racing. Went out and found an older mod that had some potential, Got a ford motor built for it and go to stick it in and realized why you didn’t see any fords out there, Ford motors are wide up top and require more room for the headers. I had to change quite a bit to the car to make it work. Only ran the car twice the first year I had it because of the lack of money and sponsors.”

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