NCWTS: MATT TIFFT Looking to Hit the Jackpot in his NASCAR Slots Games Tundra

MOORESVILLE, N.C. (Sept. 29, 2015) – Matt Tifft heads to Las Vegas (Nev.) Motor Speedway where he will be making what he hopes is his lucky 13^th career NASCAR Camping World Truck Series start in Saturday night’s Rhino Linings 350. The 19-year-old student isn’t old enough to hit the sports books during his visit to the Gambling Capital of the World, but he will be looking to parlay a strong showing in his NASCAR XFINITY Series debut last weekend at Kentucky Speedway in Sparta into his first career NASCAR win this weekend.

The UNC Charlotte student has gained valuable seat time in 2015, entering a total of 19 contests with his action split between the Truck Series, NASCAR XFINITY Series, ARCA Racing Series and the K&N Pro Series West. In his most recent proposition, the Ohio native was within striking distance of pulling off a longshot win in his XFINITY Series debut with Joe Gibbs Racing. Tifft ran second late in the race and started third on the next-to-last restart before getting shuffled back and ending the day with the 10^th-place payout.

Tifft has recorded four top-10 finishes across his nine Truck Series starts this season, which he has split between Kyle Busch Motorsports (six) and Venturini Motorsports (three), including season-best eighth-place finishes at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway in May at Pocono (Pa.) Raceway in August. In the ARCA Racing Series, he has registered three top-five and five top-10 finishes across eight starts, including a runner-up finish in April at Fairgrounds Speedway in Nashville, Tenn. Eight of his ARCA Racing starts came for Ken Schrader Racing, while he also made one start for Venturini Motorsports. The talented youngster also competed in one NASCAR K&N Pro Series West race, finishing 14^th for Jefferson-Pitts Racing at Sonoma (Calif.) Raceway in June.

KBM’s most recent visit to Las Vegas was a successful one as the team cashed in on its first victory at the home track of its namesake. Darrell Wallace Jr. had the fastest truck for most of the 146-lap event and led a race-high 84 laps, but surrendered the lead to teammate Erik Jones with 14 laps remaining. Jones remained out front the rest of the way en route to his third career Truck Series victory. Tifft’s efffort this weekend will be led by veteran crew chief Jerry Baxter, who called the shots for Wallace Jr.’s runner-up finish last year and produced a top-five in 2013 as well.

With 12 career Truck Series starts in the hopper, Tifft has progressively gained confidence each time he pulls the shifter lever and the field rolls. While it will be the 19-year-old’s first start at Las Vegas in any carousal, he’ll have three-and-a-half hours of practice to find the winning line around the 1.5-mile venue. As the field comes off Turn 4 toward the finish line Saturday night, he hopes to be far enough out front that nobody can reel him in as he looks to hit the jackpot in his NASCAR Slots Games Tundra.

Matt Tifft, driver of the No. 54 NCWTS NASCAR Slots Games Tundra:

Las Vegas will be a new track for you, how have you prepared for it?

“The biggest thing is that I’ve watched a lot of film of previous races at Las Vegas to see if there were any trends. Watching last year’s race the KBM trucks were really strong and were able to bring home a one-two finish, so I’m looking forward to getting behind the wheel of my NASCAR Slots Games Tundra on Saturday. I would say that my overall confidence is up coming off a strong run at Kentucky in my first career XFINITY Series start, so I’m really looking forward to getting right back behind the wheel this weekend at Las Vegas.”

Is it challenging bouncing back and forth between different teams and series, or do you find it beneficial because you are able to get advice from a lot of different people?

“It can be challenging, but with not having a full-time schedule in any series this season, working with all of the different teams I have this year has allowed me to gain more seat time and get a lot of feedback from the different crew chiefs and teams — which is very valuable to a young driver. I’m looking forward to working with Jerry (Baxter) and the 51 guys again this weekend. We had a really fast Tundra in our first race together at Charlotte earlier this season, so with Las Vegas being another fast mile-and-a-half track I’m confident that we’ll be able to run up front again. I’ve learned so much more about the aero dependency of the trucks since the Charlotte race, so I feel like the driver will be able to get more out of the truck this time around.”

Jerry Baxter, crew chief of the No. 54 NCWTS NASCAR Slots Games Tundra:

In your first race working with Matt you had a solid run at Charlotte earlier this season. Are you excited about getting back to another fast mile-and-a-half track this weekend?

“That was our first race working together and we definitely had a lot of speed. Since that time he’s gained a lot more experience on the intermediate tracks — especially recently he’s been racing on them almost every week. I spent a lot of time with him this week talking things over and going through the notes and you can tell he has a lot of confidence right now. We have really good notes from last year when Bubba (Darrell Wallace Jr.) led the most laps — although they are bringing a little bit of a different tire this time. All three of our teams have been working well together in recent weeks and with KBM bringing three young drivers to Las Vegas, we’re going to need to do that again this weekend.”

Matt Tifft’s No. 54 NASCAR Slots Games Tundra:

KBM-16: The No. 54 NASCAR Slots Games team will unload KBM-16 for Saturday night’s Rhino Linings 350 at Las Vegas (Nev.) Motor Speedway. The Tundra scored a runner-up finish at Dover (Del.) International Speedway with Daniel Suarez earlier this season in its lone start of 2015. The truck was scheduled to race at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway, but the team was forced to a backup after an accident in practice. The chassis will make its first start since being refurbished after the Bristol accident.

Date	Site	Driver	Start	Finish	Laps	Laps Led	Status
5/29/2015	Dover	Suarez	5	2	200/200	0	Running
9/13/2014	Chicago	Wallace Jr.	6	6	150/150	10	Running
8/16/2014	Michigan	Wallace Jr.	4	11	99/100	48	Running
6/26/2014	Kentucky	Wallace Jr.	2	2	150/150	34	Running
6/6/2014	Texas	Wallace Jr.	7	10	166/167	0	Running
5/9/2014	Kansas	Wallace Jr.	21	15	156/167	0	Running
11/1/2013	Texas	Wallace, Jr.	17	7	147/147	0	Running
9/28/2013	Las Vegas	Wallace, Jr.	17	5	146/146	23	Running
9/13/2013	Chicago	Wallace, Jr.	13	11	150/150	0	Running
8/3/2013	Pocono	Wallace, Jr.	5	7	54/54	2	Running
6/7/2013	Texas	Wallace, Jr.	16	6	167/167	0	Running
5/17/2013	Charlotte	Wallace, Jr.	13	27	121/134	0	Accident
4/20/2013	Kansas	Wallace, Jr.	15	7	167/167	8	Running
Totals	13 starts, 0 Wins		10.8	8.9		125

Notes of Interest:

Matt Tifft @ Las Vegas Motor Speedway

Making his first start in any series at the Nevada track

Matt Tifft 2015

Has registered four top-10 finishes in nine NCWTS starts this season, including season-best eighth-place finishes at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway in May and Pocono (Pa.) Raceway in August
Was running second in his NASCAR XFINITY Series debut at Kentucky Speedway in Sparta, but got shuffled back on a late-race restart and ended with a 10^th-place finish (9/26/15)
Has posted an average finish of 11.5 across eight ARCA Racing starts, including a runner-up finish at Fairgrounds Speedway in Nashville, Tenn.
Finished 15^th in the K&N Pro Series West race at Sonoma (Calif.) Raceway (6/27/15)

Matt Tifft NCWTS Career Stats:

Year	Races	Win	Top 5	Top 10	Pole	Laps	Led	Earnings	AvSt	AvFn	RAF	Miles	LLF
2014	3	0	0	1	0	458	0	$30,400	21.7	16.3	3	430.2	2
2015	9	0	0	4	0	999	0	$141,963	14.8	16.8	6	1259.2	4
Totals	12	0	0	5	0	1457	0	$172,363	16.5	16.7	9	1689.4	6

Matt Tifft 2014

Eighth-place finish in his NCWTS debut at Martinsville Speedway in October was his best result across three starts
Produced five top-five and seven top-10 finishes, including a runner-up finish at Kentucky Speedway in September, across his 10 ARCA Racing Series starts
Collected two top-10 finishes across six NASCAR K&N Pro Series East starts
Finished 10th in his lone NASCAR K&N Pro Series West start

Kyle Busch Motorsports’ No. 51 Tundra:

The No. 51 team has collected two wins, eight top-five and 12 top-10 finishes between drivers Christopher Bell, Kyle Busch, Daniel Suarez and Matt Tifft and currently ranks fifth in the 2015 NCWTS Owner’s championship point standings, 63 points behind the series-leading No. 4 team
The No. 51Tundra team has compiled 19 of KBM’s 44 NCWTS victories, the most of any truck number in the team’s stable, and are the two-time reigning NCWTS Owner’s champions

KBM NCWTS Program

Has collected three NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Owner’s Championships, 44 Truck Series victories and 23 poles across 252 starts since originating in 2010
44 career Truck Series victories as an organization ranks second all-time behind Roush Fenway (50)
14 victories as an organization during the 2014 season broke the Truck Series record of 12 set by Ultra Motorsports in 2001
Seven different drivers have won a race for KBM, led by owner-driver Kyle Busch with 28. Erik Jones has collected six victories, Darrell Wallace Jr., has five wins, Denny Hamlin produced two victories and Christopher Bell, Kasey Kahne and Brian Scott all collected one triumph
Has collected victories at 20 of the 21 tracks on the 2015 schedule, excluding Atlanta Motor Speedway

KBM NCWTS @ Las Vegas Motor Speedway

KBM drivers have collected one win, three top-five and five top-10 finishes resulting in an average finish of 10.2 across eight starts at Las Vegas
Erik Jones picked up KBM’s first victory at Las Vegas in last year’s event after taking the lead from teammate Darrell Wallace Jr., with 14 laps remaining
Wallace Jr., led a race-high 84 laps in last year’s event and came home in the runner-up position to give KBM a one-two finish

The Book on Baxter:

Veteran crew chief Jerry Baxter is currently in his third season atop the pit box for Kyle Busch Motorsports. Under the California native’s guidance, Darrell Wallace Jr. finished third in the Truck Series championship standings in 2014 and led all series regulars in wins (four), laps led (623), driver rating (109.5) and fastest laps run (280). Combined in two seasons working with Wallace Jr., Baxter posted five wins, three poles, 963 laps led, 14 top-five and 26 top-10 finishes across 44 starts. In addition to his seven wins at KBM, he boasts one other Truck Series win (Cale Gale, 2012) and one NASCAR XFINITY Series win (David Reutimann, 2007).

Baxter’s Truck Series drivers have posted two top-five and three top-10 finishes at Las Vegas, including Darrell Wallace Jr.’s, runner-up finish in last year’s event.

Kyle Busch Motorsports No. 51 Tundra 2015 NCWTS Box Score:

Date	Site	Driver	Start	Finish	Laps	Laps Led	Status	Owner Pts./Pos.	Money Won
2/20	Daytona	Suarez	30	9	100/100	5	running	36/9^th	$20,786
2/28	Atlanta	Suarez	4	4	130/130	1	running	77/4^th	$21,261
3/28	Martinsville	Suarez	11	6	258/258	0	running	115/4^th	$16,574
5/8	Kansas	Suarez	10	6	167/167	1	running	154/4^th	$17,277
5/15	Charlotte	Tifft	3	8	139/139	0	running	190/4^th	$16,481
5/29	Dover	Suarez	5	2	200/200	0	running	232/4^th	$33,106
6/5	Texas	Suarez	3	2	167/167	6	running	275/3^rd	$41,559
6/13	Gateway	Tifft	8	25	92/167	0	accident	294/5^th	$12,019
6/19	Iowa	Bell	10	5	200/200	0	running	333/4^th	$18,646
7/9	Kentucky	Suarez	4	4	145/145	18	running	374/4^th	$22,029
7/22	Eldora	Tifft	22	21	154/154	0	running	397/4^th	$13,952
8/1	Pocono	Busch	2	1	69/69	53	running	445/4^th	$41,542
8/15	Michigan	Busch	10	1	100/100	44	running	493/4^th	$43,447
8/19	Bristol	Suarez	16	30	154/202	0	overheating	507/4^th	$11,202
8/30	Canadian Tire	Tifft	15	23	56/64	0	running	528/5^th	$15,566
9/19	Chicago	Suarez	6	4	150/150	3	running	569/5^th	$19,769
9/26	New Hampshire	Busch	2	11	175/175	67	running	603/5^th	$12,915