Matt Lofton returned to his home track at South Boston Speedway and earned his career-best finish of fourth place in Saturday night’s South Boston 250.
“We had a great showing here [at South Boston],” commented Lofton. “My family and our company, Strutmasters, are from right down the road, so we had a lot of our employees here to watch the race. If there was anywhere to get your best finish, I’d want it to be here in front of my home town crowd.”
Lofton started the race in the sixth position and remained solid in the top-six for the first half of the race. During a long green flag run, Lofton worked his way up to fourth. A caution came out shortly after and he brought his Strutmasters Chevrolet into the pits for the first pit stop of the night. Lofton’s crew put on four fresh tires and got him out in fifth position.
Shortly after the restart, another caution flew and Lofton came back in for fuel. He then restarted in the fourth position behind Derek Kale, Brandon Ward and Bobby Gill. Lofton quickly worked his way past Gill after he slid up the track, allowing Lofton the chance to pass him for third on the inside.
While running in the third spot, contact was made between leader Derek Kale and the lapped car of Brett Butler, which brought out another caution. On the next restart, Lofton started right behind new leader, Ward and had a great restart, but lapped traffic prevented him from pulling off the pass and even cost him a few positions.
“Everytime I had a chance to look low there was a lapped car in the way,” explained Lofton. “There at the end, a lapped car cut down on my nose which got Clay [Rogers] right on my back bumper. We battled with about eight laps to go, then he shot me up the track a little bit. I was able to gather it back up but lost a lot of time, by then, Bobby Gill was there. He gave me a little shot and got back by me.”
Lofton has gained a lot of confidence over the last couple of weeks, and a career best finish at his favorite track gives him that added confidence as the Series gets closer to the Championship Series.
“A fourth place finish is great, but I really would have liked to finish three spots ahead of that,” said the Virginia native. “We’ve been building some momentum these last couple races. This is the most complete race we’ve ran all season, so it’s definitely something to build on for the Championship Series.”
Lofton sits comfortably in the top ten in the standings with one more racing remaining before the four-race Championship Series begins at Sept. 5 at Concord [N.C.] Motor Speedway.
Matt Lofton and the rest of the USARacing Pro Cup Series [formerly Hooters Pro Cup] will take a week off before returning to Langley [Va.] Speedway on Aug. 22.
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