Carter gave up the pigskin to chase his racing dream

The last time 27-year-old Matt Carter was at Pocono Raceway, he was catching tires as a teenager for veteran driver Jimmy Spencer.

Nearly a decade has passed and Carter is finally making a return to the triangle-shaped track. Only this time, he is behind the wheel, not in the pits.

"I have young memories of the place but I've never even tested at the track," said Carter, set to compete in Saturday's Pocono ARCA 200.

Matt Carter

2008 ARCA/REMAX stats

Races	7
Wins	1
Top-fives	3
Top-10s	4
Points Ranking	2

Son of former NASCAR team owner Travis Carter and kin to Roush Fenway crew chief Larry Carter, the North Carolina native is running for SunTrust rookie of the year honors in the ARCA RE/MAX Series, and after seven starts this season, Carter found Victory Lane at Toledo Speedway last month.

Despite growing up amongst racing legends such as Harry Gant, Cale Yarborough, Bobby Allison and Benny Parsons, all of whom his father worked with, young Carter's love affair with racing didn't come to pass until he was 18.

By that time, he was packed and ready to start college life playing football for Appalachian State University.

Although, life around the racetrack never left his mind completely and it was a conversation with long-time fixture of NASCAR, Andy Petree, that led Carter to a Late Model test at Tri-County Speedway in 1999.

Then, at 19, Carter decided he wanted to race full time and left the pigskin on the Boone, N.C. campus.

With his father's help, the two built their own Late Model cars and raced around the South until 2003 when Carter got a call from family friend and Craftsman Truck Series veteran Carl Long.

"He was working for my dad but he had a truck he wanted me to run in Martinsville," Carter said. "I told him I'd ask my dad about it, but I knew the answer."

His father gave him the green light and good luck; good luck finding the money, Carter was told.

The luck and money both showed up for that race, thanks to a businessman in Texas, but the man and the money didn't last past Martinsville despite Carter's 17th-place finish in his Truck Series debut.

Carter went to the Hooters Pro Cup Series in 2004 where he finished a career-best sixth in championship points with nine top-five finishes and 16 top-10s in 19 races. That year, he was named the Hooters Pro Cup Miller Lite rookie of the year.

His first Hooter Pro Cup victory came in 2007 at Iowa Speedway and this year he was hired to replace ARCA champion Frank Kimmel at Clement Racing, a team that has won several championships.

Carter hopes his performance in ARCA will catch the attention of a Sprint Cup team owner willing to fund his future in racing.

"I don't have millions of sponsorship dollars to go NASCAR racing so the only thing I can do is keep on winning," he said. "I feel good about my opportunity with Clement Racing and what we are doing. We don't have a ton of money but we are still competitive against the drivers with teams like Roush and Red Bull behind them."