“Hollywood” Jeff Mathews is an East Bay Raceway Park local who hails from Apollo Beach, FL, less than 10 miles from the track. He came out on top of the 2017 East Bay Winter Nationals with big wins in his then-brand new Lethal Chassis and carries great momentum into this year's event, which gets underway this week and runs to Feb. 17 in Gibsonton, FL. 

Mathews will be pulling double duty as both driver of his own car and team owner of Kenny Wallace’s 2018 East Bay Winter Nationals ride. We spoke to Mathews about his teammate and plans for East Bay and beyond.

Watch the 2018 East Bay Winter Nationals LIVE on FloRacing

FloRacing: We spoke to Kenny Wallace earlier this week. He told us he’d be piloting your backup car at this year’s East Bay Winter Nationals. 

Jeff Mathews: Yep, Kenny will be driving one of my Lethal Chassis next week. He’s a good friend and we talked about it, then he called and we put it together. Kenny is not bringing his crew so he’s racing whatever car we bring him. I called him and asked if he wants to come set it up and he said, “I want to drive that car exactly like you drive it.” So we are going to bring it just like mine.

What are your plans for the 2018 season?

We are running the Ultimate Super Late Models this year for the full season. We are planning on venturing out a lot more. We talked to Jack Cornett at PRI in December and he’s going to be doing our super motors. As for speed weeks, we are starting at East Bay for mods, then we are testing the super late model on Monday. We’ll run the super late model week there then go on to Volusia. We may run some of the stuff at North Florida as well.

Tell us about your Lethal Chassis program in the modifieds division.

We switched to Lethal Chassis last season. We won the Winter Nationals in it and at Bubba (Raceway Park in Ocala, FL). We won the Alabama state championship, as well. It was a good season and we are hoping to keep it rolling into this season.

As a local at East Bay, do you feel you have an advantage over the Northern invaders?

We have a little advantage at East Bay. Those guys up north get to race more. They get in twice as many races a year as we do. But home track does help level the playing field. We’ve been racing at East Bay for 25 years now, but when those guys are getting in four races a week it works to their advantage. 

Having raced at East Bay for the past 25 years, you’ve seen a lot come and go. Has the track changed in that time?

It sure has. Ten years ago we ran big motors but now you can run a crate motor. The track surface has changed over the years. Nobody won a late model race locally all year at East Bay in an open motor. They were all running crate. Even we ran a crate motor last year against all those open motors and won the Winter Nationals. The track is drier and slicks off a lot more than it used to.

Tell me about the name “Hollywood.” How did you end up with that?

Twenty-five years ago the tire guy down there gave me that nickname and it’s been there ever since. I own a business and there was a guy I was paying to take care of my stuff and I’d just show up and race. I got it back then and it’s stuck.

If you could tell the fans out there one reason not to miss the Winter Nationals at East Bay, what would you say?

East Bay has a touch of history. It’s known, people schedule vacations around it. That aspect of it has only grown over the years. Watch it for the history and the kickoff to racing season.