It was announced in late October that series official Terry Mattox purchased the American Sprint Car Series and took over ownership and management responsibilities.
It was announced in late October that series official Terry Mattox purchased the American Sprint Car Series and took over ownership and management responsibilities.
It was a historic moment for ASCS, which was conceived and founded in 1992 by Hall of Fame driver and promoter Emmett Hahn. Hahn recently announced that, following the recent loss of his wife Fuzzy, he was looking to reduce his day-to-day workload. The sale of ASCS to Mattox was part of Hahn‘s transition.
Mattox, 26, began his work in series management in 2013 shortly after graduating high school. He launched the National Open Wheel 600 Series for micro sprints and later began working with Hahn as an ASCS official.
In recent years he has served as competition director for the Sooner Region of ASCS and is co-owner of the Oil Capital Racing Series.
ASCS National series competition will see two key differences in 2022. The schedule will be more focused on middle America, with no trip to the East or West Coast as in years past. The racing format will also change, adopting group qualifying and passing points.
Sprint Car & Midget discussed the transaction and the coming season with Mattox.
SCM: Let‘s talk about your background. How did you become involved as an ASCS official?
Mattox: I was a senior in high school in 2012, and in September or October that year I decided to start a micro series. I wanted to talk to Emmett about how to start a series. He gave me some advice, I got my schedule together, and at the time I was also working for OCRS and ended up helping at Creek County also. In 2013 the position of Sooner Region director came open, so I made the call and got hired to do it. I had never done anything like that before, but I was getting more involved.
SCM: Tell us how your purchase of ASCS came about.
Mattox: Emmett has been a mentor of mine since the beginning, and he started talking with me about how I might eventually take on a bigger role with ASCS. A few months ago he came to me and said he had decided to sell and explained that he wanted me to
buy the series.
SCM: When you announced the purchase, what was your most pressing objective? What did you feel you needed to do first?
Mattox: The first thing was to get the point fund back up to where it used to be, before the pandemic. We took a look at our sponsors and how many races we can reasonably book and figured out a way to pay $200,000 in point money and still keep everything running
and afloat.
SCM: It‘s been 30 years since Emmett conceived and launched ASCS. How has the mission changed for ASCS since that time?
Mattox: We‘ve had so much happen since Emmett started it. When he started, his concept was to promote 360 sprint car racing and make it stronger. That mission has always been there and in 2022 we‘re looking to get back to our roots and build 360s stronger than
ever before.
SCM: The ASCS national schedule for 2022 is different than the past few years. It looks like you‘re hoping to trim some travel costs by avoiding going out west, for example. Is this a temporary shift, or more likely to be the future?
Mattox: We have a five-year plan and we eventually want to get back to the East Coast and West Coast. But the last few years we‘ve gone out there, we‘ve seen some of the drivers who plan to run full time drop off the series, because of the expense. When we go to Washington, for example, we‘re out there for a month. That takes a toll on the team budgets. We need to get back to our roots in the central part of the country and keep those teams on the road. We‘ll see if that‘s where we need to stay, or eventually start traveling farther. Time will tell.
SCM: One of your first announcements was changing your format to group qualifying and passing points. What led you to make this change?
Mattox: Bryan Hulbert (series publicist and announcer) and I were talking about some things last summer, just brainstorming. We talked about getting to where the pill draw doesn‘t hurt your night so bad. There were challenges there and we wanted to create a more balanced format. That‘s why we put the passing points in there; you‘ve got two chances to improve yourself — qualifying and your heat race.
SCM: The ASCS format has always been unique. Is that something you want to maintain?
Mattox: Yes. We still want it to be something special, something different. I still want to be different and that‘s what we did with this format.
SCM: What do you hear from racers today about expenses? This has been a steady topic of conversation for a lot of years.
Mattox: You know, we haven‘t heard too much yet about that. We get just a few things here and there, suggestions to bring the costs down. As part of our five-year plan we eventually want to figure out how to make racing less expensive, but that‘s pretty hard to do. That‘s one thing with the travel difference.