TOLEDO, OH (Sept. 10, 2024) – Former ARCA and NASCAR driver, Matt Tifft, of Cleveland, OH, will be making his return to asphalt circle track racing this coming Saturday, September 14at Toledo Speedway. Tifft will be competing behind the wheel of an ASA STARS National Tour car in the 36th running of the Corvetteparts.net Glass City 200 presented by DTS Drive Train Specialists & Courtyard By Marriott.
The 28-year-old competitor made a full-time run at the NASCAR Cup Series in 2019 but his season came to an abrupt end late in the season at Martinsville Speedway, when a seizure caused him to faint at the track. Tifft was taken to the hospital, was diagnosed with epilepsy, and his racing career was halted. This all came after Tifft had surgery a few years earlier, in 2016, to remove a benign tumor from his brain.
Fast forward to 2024, Tifft returned to the driver seat with a clean bill of health in a Dirt Super Late Model as well as road course racing, including the Trans Am Series. Tifft has had a busy schedule, especially on the dirt side, competing in over 30 events between dirt and road courses. This season, Tifft picked up a couple of wins on the road course at Road Atlanta and has had a couple of top five finishes on the dirt side.
Tifft will be driving a Super Late Model as a teammate to current ASA STARS point leader, Casey Roderick. It will be an Anthony Campi prepared #57 with support from his season long sponsors, PB B’laster and GUNK Degreasers.
“While I didn’t have any intentions of running any asphalt late model races this year, the opportunity came up to race with Anthony Campi racing here recently for the Glass City 200,” explained Tifft. “I’ve had a lot of fun on the dirt side of things but I wanted to race in a competitive series and see how I could do. I honestly don’t have any set expectations but want to go out and have fun and be competitive. Hopefully, we have a great run and come back for more in the future.”
While the dirt track racing has been a new experience for Tifft, returning to asphalt will be familiar territory as he was formerly an ASA Midwest Tour full-timer in 2012, where he finished 5th in the standings. Tifft was also an annual New Smyrna World Series Super Late Model racer between 2011-2014 and has made starts in other major asphalt Super Late Model events.
Tifft, originally from Hinckley, Ohio, now resides in Cleveland. He exploded onto the scene in 2013 when he finished fifth in his ARCA Menards Series debut at Toledo Speedway driving for WinTron Racing and team owner Kevin Cywinski. He’d return in 2014 racing for NASCAR Cup Series star Ken Schrader’s team, racking up five top-five finishes in ten starts including third-place finishes at Toledo, New Jersey Motorsports Park, and Chicagoland Speedway. He finished a career-best second that fall at Kentucky Speedway, which he would match the next year at Mobile International Speedway.
He has 77 NASCAR Xfinity Series starts to his credit with 9 top-five and 38 top-ten finishes; he has 25 career NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series starts with a best finish of fifth at Charlotte Motor Speedway in 2016.
Saturday will be his first appearance at the Glass City 200 but he did make a Super Late Model start at the ½-mile in a CRA Super Series race in 2013. Tickets for the Glass City 200 at Toledo Speedway are available and can be found by clicking here. Tickets and pit passes will also be available at the track on race day. For those not able to attend the event, live coverage will be available at www.tracktv.com. The CorvetteParts.net Glass City 200 is scheduled for Saturday, September 14 at Toledo Speedway. The day’s activities kick off with two rounds of practice at 11 am and noon, while the starting lineup will be set in Go FAS Pole Qualifying at 2:45 pm. Local racing, including the ARCA Salenbein Excavating Late Model Sportsman division and ARCA Safety Kleen Factory Stock division season championship features are set to follow, with the ASA STARS National Tour on-track autograph session after. Driver introductions will take place at 5 pm, while the green flag will fly over the 200-lap main event at 5:30 pm ET.
Tickets are available at ToledoSpeedway.com; please call the track office (419) 727-1100 for more information.
