FORT WORTH, Texas – Looking proud, optimistic and fit, Matt Tifft addressed reporters Friday morning at Texas Motor Speedway to talk about his new job driving a Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota full time next year in NASCAR’s XFINITY Series.
The 20-year old Ohio native, who had a benign brain tumor removed July 1, appeared in the Texas Media Center Friday morning eager to talk about this next important step in his career.
And how hard he worked to achieve it, certainly the road less traveled by.
“It’s an incredible opportunity,” Tifft said. “The crazy thing is I remember a couple months ago just coming to Bristol and doing a press conference about just trying to get back in the car [following brain surgery].
“So it’s so cool to be sitting here today and announcing plans for next year and being full time. The Joe Gibbs Racing organization was so great through every thing I went through. It’s going to be an awesome opportunity to race with them week in and week out.”
Tifft smiled often as he spoke to reporters about his unpredictable and unconventional season to date. He was as inspiring as he was informational, sharing his very determined path to overcome his health issues and continue to advance his young career in the NASCAR ranks.
He candidly discussed some of the extra precautions he takes at the race track, like wearing Surface Sunscreen zinc stick to guard the surgical scar on his head. He recalled down to the minute – 7:51 p.m. – when he came out of surgery to remove the tumor on his brain.
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“They told me I would be there for three or four days just admitted in the hospital and I got through a lot of things and got eating by midnight that night and I remember asking the next morning – I asked the nurse for a checklist of what you need to get out of this hospital,” Tifft recalled. “I just wanted to get done with everything, get back to home and instead of waiting three days, I got out less than 24 hours later from brain surgery and that motivation I had ever since then I never thought in my mind that I wasn’t going to do this.”
Turning his part-time 2016 effort into a full-time job next year was always the plan, he said. But clearly, his medical situation became the primary focus before he was given the all clear to pursue a more robust schedule.
Tifft returned to NASCAR competition Sept. 16 for a Camping World Truck Series start at Chicagoland Speedway, scoring a 12th-place finish. He earned his first post-surgery top-10 (10th place) at Talladega last month. He has a pair of XFINITY Series starts since his surgery, including a season best fifth place (plus two laps led) at Kentucky Speedway and an eighth place at Charlotte.
“When we started this year with the 13-race schedule, in my mind my job was to go out and perform and show that I could race with my teammates and learn as much as I could. But with the ultimate goal of hopefully being able to move into a full-time role. Probably towards the time that it started happening – where that the health issues started to come up – was probably when we first started talking about it and then obviously this stuff kind of got put on the back burner, so, you know, now that we’ve been able to get back in the car and get some good runs again, that’s when we started really seriously talking about it,” Tifft said.
He grinned widely explaining the most painful thing he’s been through recently was watching his hometown Cleveland Indians lose in the World Series this week.
He is so hopeful – and grateful – for this opportunity at JGR. For this opportunity in life.
What has he learned?
“How much I love it,” Tifft said.
“You know, I think I remember in July probably two or three weeks after surgery and it was incredible to me how much my perspective on life – had changed because, you know, I remember watching races on TV and when I first started going through these things and I had to miss a race for the back issue at Iowa it was like, ‘Man, I really want to be out there,’ and then I remember sitting at home in July thinking, ‘I have no idea, you know, what my future entails for me.’ I didn’t know – I didn’t know if I could drive a street car.
“I didn’t know when that timeline was going to be. I didn’t know if I was going to drive a race car this year, next year, whenever, but, you know, I just definitely kept the faith in myself that I could get back to that point.
“That’s what kept me motivated the whole time, but without the support of family and friends and that motivation to get back to racing, I don’t know how quick my recovery time would have been and obviously it’s different for every person. When I had to step out of that car and almost had what I love so much and wanted to do since I was five years old taken away from me, it made me appreciate it so much more that I’m stepping back to that role as a race car driver.”