{"id":29132,"date":"2026-05-07T21:24:03","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T01:24:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/?p=29132"},"modified":"2026-05-09T21:25:05","modified_gmt":"2026-05-10T01:25:05","slug":"chris-matthews-still-winning-races-in-stafford-sk-light-division-20-years-later","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/2026\/05\/chris-matthews-still-winning-races-in-stafford-sk-light-division-20-years-later\/","title":{"rendered":"Chris Matthews Still Winning Races in Stafford SK Light Division 20 Years Later"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Stafford Speedway created its SK Light division at the end of the 2005 season with the first race taking place on April 29, 2006. That race was part of the NAPA Spring Sizzler\u00ae weekend and was won by Chris Matthews. 20 years later, Matthews is still racing in the SK Light division and he is still winning races.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Matthews won the season opening 30-lap SK Light feature in this year\u2019s edition of the NAPA Spring Sizzler\u00ae, which was the fourth time in his career that he has won the SK Light portion of the NAPA Spring Sizzler\u00ae. Although Matthews is still going strong and shows no signs of slowing down any time soon, he couldn\u2019t picture himself still racing and winning in the SK Light ranks 20 years after he won the very first SK Light feature held at Stafford.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI really didn\u2019t see myself still racing 20 years later,\u201d said Matthews. \u201cWe\u2019re still having fun with racing and as long as it\u2019s fun, it\u2019s still worth doing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Matthews was a force in his first three seasons of SK Light competition, nearly winning the inaugural championship in 2006 before claiming the 2007 title. Matthews also notched a total of 17 SK Light feature wins in those first three seasons before he moved up to the premier SK Modified\u00ae division where he raced from 2009-2012. Following the 2012 season, Matthews took several seasons off from racing before returning to the SK Light division in 2017. Upon his return to the division, Matthews found the path to NAPA Victory Lane a bit tougher to navigate than in his initial experience. It took Matthews five seasons and 75 races before he would find himself winning an SK Light feature again. But since that first win in the third race of the 2022 season, Matthews has claimed a total of 8 more feature wins to push his career win total to 26, the most career wins of anyone in Stafford SK Light history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe division is definitely way more competitive than it was when I first started,\u201d said Matthews. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot more cars now that are fast. When I first started, it was only a handful of cars that were fast and could win races and now it seems like everyone out there has a fast car and can win a race. But I don\u2019t mind that at all, it\u2019s way more fun when you can win races and there\u2019s that much competition.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Matthews\u2019 victory in the NAPA Spring Sizzler\u00ae along with his second place finish in his qualifying duel race has him tied with Nick Anglace for the lead in the 2026 SK Light standings. Matthews hasn\u2019t won a championship since his 2007 triumph, but he is hoping that he and his #29 Vernon Chevrolet team can maintain a high level of performance throughout the season and be a contender for what would be his second career track championship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWinning races definitely helps the team morale and while it\u2019s still too early to start counting points, it\u2019s nice to get off to a good start,\u201d said Matthews. \u201cLast season we didn\u2019t have such a great start and I\u2019m really hoping we can keep on going after wins. The car felt really good at the Sizzler so as long as everything can stay the same once we get into the night races I feel like we can do ok. As long as we\u2019re having fun and enjoying things, we\u2019re going to keep on going and obviously winning makes things much more enjoyable. I\u2019ll take a win anytime I can get one. I really have to thank my wife, my kids, the whole crew and everyone who helps us out, Vernon Chevrolet, Arcari Motors, Lakeshore Benefit Group, Wheel Shop, everyone. Without their support, we wouldn\u2019t be able to do this every week.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Matthews will look to continue his winning ways this Friday, May 8th. May 8th is a weekly racing program that will see Stafford\u2019s SK Modified\u00ae, Late Model, Limited Late Model, and Street Stock teams join the SK Light teams in feature action.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stafford Speedway created its SK Light division at the end of the 2005 season with the first race taking place on April 29, 2006. That race was part of the NAPA Spring Sizzler\u00ae weekend and was won by Chris Matthews. 20 years later, Matthews is still racing in the SK Light division and he is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-connecticut","category-stafford-connecticut"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29132"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29132\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29133,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29132\/revisions\/29133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}