Boston Louie would be proud.
Fans of open-wheel racing took notice of Jake Trainor’s victory as a rookie in the 2023 Little 500 and Hank Davis’ success at the last two Chili Bowls.
While the two events seem unrelated, they share a common denominator; the crew chief for both was Matt Seymour. Seymour is the 27-year-old son of 1987 Northeastern Midget Ass’n champion Bobby Seymour and the grandson of legendary car owner “Boston Louie” Seymour – a 2004 inductee into the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame. His uncle, Mike Seymour, was the NEMA champion in 1994.
Family patriarch Louis Seymour started campaigning USAC midgets, sprint cars and Silver Crown machines in 1965, towing to the Midwest nearly every week from his home in Marlboro, Mass. Hence the “Boston Louie” nickname. The cars were eventually wrenched by Seymour’s sons, Bobby and Mike, and success came frequently.
Billy Cassella drove the No. 29 Seymour entry to the 1976 USAC National Dirt Championship; George Snider (1971) and Bruce Walkup (1972) topped the first two editions of the Hulman Classic USAC sprint car race at Indiana’s Terre Haute Action Track; and Ken Schrader claimed a pair (1989 and ’90) of Copper World Classic USAC Silver Crown wins at Phoenix Raceway.
Other victories came at some of the nation’s most iconic short tracks, including Winchester, Salem, Eldora, Indianapolis Raceway Park, Williams Grove and the Indy Mile.
The team’s driver roster also featured Doug Wolfgang, Sheldon Kinser, Joe Saldana, Rich Vogler, Eddie Leavitt, Dave Blaney and Bentley Warren.
Matt Seymour was born four months after “Boston Louie” died, but he’s carrying on the Seymour racing legacy in a way that would make his grandfather proud.
Seymour tried his hand at quarter-midget racing but driving wasn’t his calling. However, even at a young age, his father saw that the mechanical aptitude was there.
“I knew he had mechanical ability when he did 95 percent of the work on his quarter-midget.” stated his father, Bobby Seymour. “When Matt was 11 years old, he stripped down one of our NEMA Lites midgets. I helped him a little to reassemble the car but not much. Then, he and Anthony Nocella raced it that year and won four races. At the same time, we had Jeff Abold driving the NEMA midget and we won three straight Boston Louie Memorials at Seekonk Speedway, so that really got Matt hooked.”
The younger Seymour took full advantage of the knowledgeable racing minds available to him.
“I had a lot of great teachers growing up,” Matt Seymour noted. “My dad was the biggest one, he taught me so much about race cars as far as building them, setting them up and how everything works on the chassis side of things, as well as welding. My uncle Mike was the engine man. He taught me a lot about engines, maintenance, fuel settings, air, cams power curves, etc.
“Mike Streicher taught me about everything. He was such a smart guy and a teacher for UNOH, so he knew how to explain things in a way I could understand. I would call Mike all the time and pick his brain. Here at the shop, Steve Pappas worked for us for years, he was a great fabricator that I grew up working alongside and he was an awesome teacher, as well as Jimmy Eisner, who worked for NASA and now machines everything we need in the shop and taught me how to use a milling machine.
“I’ve also been fortunate to work with some very smart people in the industry such as Gary Stanton, Bob East, John Godfrey, Irish Saunders and many others who have all kind of taken me under their wing and taught me a lot, whether they knew they were doing it or not.”
Matt Seymour Racing is focused on defending Trainor’s Little 500 victory at Anderson (Ind.) Speedway in May. It will be a two-car effort with Trainor and Nocella competing in the 500-mile sprint car race. On the midget side of the shop, Trainor, P.J. Stergios and Chase Locke will each run “about” 10 NEMA Lites events throughout the season.
Seymour welcomes the challenge of MSR’s diverse schedule.
“There’s really nothing the same, whether I’m setting up a midget on dirt at the Chili Bowl for Hank, a pavement sprint car for Jake at the Little 500 or a winged midget at Star Speedway for Chase, but I like the challenge,” he explained. “A lot of people can find one package that works at one track, and they might be successful at the one track but what happens when they go to another track?
“I like the challenge of trying to figure it out at a different track, type of car, even whether it’s dirt or asphalt. And every driver has his own lingo, so I have to figure that out, too.”
Maintaining six pavement midgets, three sprint cars and two dirt midgets is a lot of work, but this is where Seymour excels.
“I think Matt’s most impressive trait is his organizational skills and his ability to get an extreme amount of work done in a short period of time, “said Bobby Seymour. “Keeping all the cars ready to race, organized and looking professional is not easy.”
Matt Seymour knows the importance of keeping the team’s many sponsors satisfied, so the team is well prepared when it leaves the shop.
“Races are won in the shop. Having to travel so far for our big races, we feel it is more important for us to be prepared since we are so far from home when we get there,” Seymour explained. “The Chili Bowl gives us virtually no time to test or shake anything down, so we need be on kill on lap one. We’ve taken that mentality into every race we run.
“I remember when we won our preliminary night at the Chili Bowl, standing in victory lane soaking it all in. I looked over at the car and saw Keith Kunz checking out the front end and Sammy Swindell checking out the rear. I knew then we were doing something right.”
Winning on Saturday night at the Chili Bowl would be the ultimate triumph for Seymour.
“After my dad and uncle stopped racing the USAC Silver Crown car, we pretty much just raced NEMA midgets for years. But we would go to the Chili Bowl and Indy every year,” he said. “So as a kid, two races I dreamed of winning were the Little 500 and the Chili Bowl. We won the Little 500 and with Hank Davis’ success at the Chili Bowl, I feel we have a shot to win that someday. Winning the Chili Bowl, nothing would top that.”
THIS ARTICLE IS REPOSTED FROM THE APRIL 17th EDITION OF SPEED SPORT INSIDER
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