HASLET, Texas – Matt Guillaume’s goals for a low-key season were to have fun, make some charges to the front and win some IMCA modified races.
He did all that and won a regional championship, too.
Guillaume topped the Razor Chassis South Central Region for the second time in his career, earning Boyd Raceway and Southern Oklahoma Speedway track titles and the KMJ Performance Oklahoma State crown as well.
“I hadn’t even looked at points until there were about three weeks left in the season. I wasn’t trying to win track championships. I wanted to get feature wins,” said the Haslet, Texas, charger. “I didn’t set out to do anything points wise. I would love to have had more wins but all the top four finishes certainly helped.”
Guillaume saw mixed results in four early season starts. He was the king of consistency once racing resumed, complementing four feature wins with 17 top five finishes.
“We ran well and had good performances but DNFs for silly reasons early. After tracks closed (for the pandemic) we were able to go through the car and make sure we had everything set up better,” explained Guillaume. “We took a different approach this year, racing at Boyd on Fridays and Ardmore on Saturdays. We kept working on the car and it paid off for us.”
Already a multi-time track champion at Boyd, Guillaume collected three checkered flags in his first season as a regular at Southern Oklahoma.
“Ardmore has a couple good promoters in John and Nicky Webb,” he said. “It’s such a good track, wide and racy and always multi-grooved. My wins came from the top, middle, bottom – you could run anywhere.”
A two-division star, Guillaume also owns three EQ Cylinder Heads Southern Region championships.
Ten of his IMCA Sunoco Stock Car starts came on the same night he ran the Modified; he won five of those races, upping his career total in the full-bodied class to 109.
“It’s a lot of work. The last time I ran both cars every night was 2015,” Guillaume said. “We did have some success in both classes this year. Next year we will race the stock car at bigger events and focus the Modified more on Saturdays at Ardmore.”