From the Lee Motorsports archives • Chapter 2

I had grown up around racing, but my first NHRA national event changed what I wanted from it. A weekend trip with friends became the day that turned a long-held dream into a goal: somehow, I was going to get behind the wheel.

This chapter follows the sprint-car weekends and family lessons where my racing journey began.

Life had put racing on the back burner

By this point, I was married, raising kids, and working full-time. Like a lot of people, I had more responsibilities than spare hours and more practical uses for money than buying a race car. The dream was still there, but family and everyday life came first.

I stayed involved where I could. I spent time at the local track, helped buddies work on their cars, and watched from the fence line. Being around racing kept that connection alive. Helping someone else get ready was worthwhile, even when I was not the one climbing into the driver’s seat.

During the week, I was turning wrenches on Chevrolets at a dealership. Working on cars gave me a daily connection to machinery and the satisfaction of figuring out a problem. The curiosity my dad had encouraged was still very much there. I liked understanding a machine, fixing it, and hearing it run again.

Work and family kept me busy. Racing remained the thing I wanted to find room for.

A weekend trip with friends

One weekend, a few of us decided on a whim to go to an NHRA national event. I had been to local dirt tracks and drag strips. I had watched bracket racers, sportsman racers, and the occasional traveling series. This would be my first time experiencing a professional NHRA event in person.

At first, it was a familiar kind of day: friends hanging out, watching sportsman cars run, and enjoying being at the track. I already liked drag racing. I just did not understand yet how different the nitro experience would feel from anything I had watched before.

Then the professional cars began coming forward, and my attention changed. Bruce Larson and Doug Herbert are names that still stick with me from that visit. So do the Snap-on Tools and WIX Filters logos. Those were familiar names from my working life, now attached to the racing I was watching. That connection caught my eye before the engines ever caught my chest.

You feel nitro racing before you can explain it

When the engines fired, the experience became physical. The sound reached well beyond my ears. I felt it in my chest, and the hair on my arms stood up. I had heard plenty of engines, but this was something else.

The burnouts added another layer: tire smoke, heat, the smell of nitro, and a vibration that seemed to travel through everything around us. I was watching the cars, but I was also taking in the crews and the whole process of getting ready to make a run. There was so much happening in a short amount of time.

Then came staging. After all that noise and movement, the focus narrowed to two cars and the starting line. I knew what the Christmas Tree was for. Seeing what happened when it sent those cars down the track was an entirely different matter.

The launch was the moment that stayed with me. Top Fuel dragsters leaving the line in person were faster and more intense than anything I had been prepared to feel. For a few seconds, the noise and acceleration seemed to take over the whole place. Then the cars were in the distance, and I could hear the crowd reacting.

I had gone there expecting to enjoy a race. I had not expected a single run to change the way I thought about my own future.

The dream became a commitment

That day did not erase the bills, create extra hours, or put a race car in my garage. I still had a family to take care of and a job to do. What changed was my determination to find a way forward.

“Somehow. Some way. Some day.”

Matt Lee

I was hooked. The childhood dream of driving had survived all those years as something I hoped might happen. After that NHRA visit, I wanted to work toward making it happen. I did not have every step figured out, but the goal had become much clearer.

The attraction was bigger than speed alone. It connected the things I had always enjoyed: machinery, problem-solving, competition, and the people who make racing possible. I wanted to take part in that world from the driver’s seat.

A turning point in the Lee Motorsports story

Looking back, I can see how the pieces fit together. Family trips to sprint-car races started the interest. Dad’s lessons gave me a way to understand the equipment. Dealership work kept me learning. That first NHRA experience supplied the push to turn interest into action.

It was the beginning of the next part of my racing journey, with plenty more work and learning ahead. I could not have known everything that would follow. I just knew I wanted the chance to make a run of my own.

Read the beginning: Chapter 1 — Racing Roots: Family, Sprint Cars, and a Kid’s Curiosity.

Explore more Lee Motorsports history.