FARMERSVILLE, Texas — The question at the end of each of the last three seasons has been, “What will Matthew Day do for an encore?”
The answer to that question this year was win the GRT Race Cars South Central Region title.
Day, just 20 years old and from Farmersville, Texas, motored to 19 feature wins and a runner-up finish in national standings for Friesen Performance IMCA Modifieds in addition to that career-first regional prize.
His 2023 accolades also included Boyd Raceway and Southern Oklahoma Speedway track, All Star Shootout series and Oklahoma State crowns.
“We didn’t plan to run for points at all. Everything just came together for us,” said Day, now a second-year structural engineering student at the University of Texas at Arlington. “We just ran where we wanted from the get-go and saw we were doing good running two nights a week before deciding to focus on points.”
In a new-to-him 2022 Longhorn Chassis by Loenbro, Day recorded six wins in his first 26 starts and 13 checkers in his last 26 outings.
Those checkers came at six different tracks, most often at Boyd (eight) and Ardmore (six).
“Our tracks favored us a lot in the second half of the season. That’s when they get really slick and that tends to favor our car a lot,” he explained. “We’ve run the All Star Series the last three years and went north for the Harris Clash again.”
“It’s just different up there. The driving style is different,” Day continued. “You can go anywhere new and pick up speed. I think going someplace new helps you hit reset.”
The 2020 national rookie of the year in 2020 and 2021 national champion in the Smiley’s Racing Products Southern SportMod division, Day followed with 12 feature wins and another national rookie of the year season in the Modifieds last year.
He’d been second in the region and fifth nationally in 2022.
“I’ve been very fortunate,” Day said. “I keep my grades up, work on the car and race when I can.”