Racing weekly in the SK Modified division at Stafford Speedway has been something Matt Swanson has been yearning to do for years.
Following the 2021 season the Acton, Mass. driver found the avenue to that goal of racing weekly at Stafford in partnering with longtime SK Modified driver and team owner Tom Bolles.
Bolles decided to shift his focus in 2022 from being a driver/owner to fielding an SK Modified full-time for Swanson at Stafford.
Unfortunately, after six events together, Swanson and Bolles have decided to part ways.
The split happened in the midst of Friday’s racing card at Stafford. After Swanson finished third in his heat race Friday, a disagreement among Bolles, the crew and Swanson led to Bolles deciding to load the car and leave the track before the feature. And the decision was made to discontinue racing together.
“It sucks it had to end that way,” Swanson said Saturday. “Especially when we were going to be starting second [in the feature] last night. I think we would have had some momentum going forward. It just stinks. I hate it for the whole crew that put all that time and effort into the car, but there’s just some things you can’t control.”
Said Bolles: “Matt’s a good kid. He’s a good shoe. It was just a few little frustrations with things. Everybody has their ideas with how things should go. I think it was a situation where we had too many cooks in the kitchen and it just got to be too much.”
Swanson started the season with a 19th place finish in the Spring Sizzler and then had finishes ninth, 11th, 13th and 11th over the last four events leading up to Friday.
“All in all we kind of discussed it before the season started that every week was going to be a trial and error deal so we could get better as a team,” Swanson said. “Not everything you try is going to work. The weeks where something doesn’t work you have to kind of step back and kind of start from square one again. That was kind of what we’ve been dealing with the last couple weeks with the car. We felt our momentum of going forward kind of slow down so we went back to square one and tried to start fresh again. I thought we were really good. Unfortunately some people didn’t think that. We just couldn’t come to an agreement.”
Swanson raced his family owned Tour Type Modified to a fourth place finish in the Nutmeg State 75 Wednesday at Thompson Speedway. He said the plan going forward at this point is to look into possibly doing more events with that car. He also will continue to run selected Tour Type Modified events for team owner Gary Casella.
“We’ll move forward and maybe get a chance to run my family car some more now,” Swanson said.
Bolles said he will likely be back behind the wheel of his own SK Modified at Stafford and may look into plans with a second car.
“I’ll see what comes about over the next few weeks,” Bolles said. “I’m a racer. I’ve raced since I was a teenager and I think I’ll probably be back out there.”
“too many cooks in the soup”… probably the most accurate statement and as a fan I don’t even know the story. the chassis guy says its the engine , the engine guy says its the car . the driver says the crew sucks and the crew says the guy cant drive. the owner trying to keep everyone happy and everyone with some type of financial emotional interest including the sponsors, wives and girlfriends … sometimes it doesn’t work out plain and simple. everyone can go their separate ways hopefully with pride and personal feelings in tact and do what makes them happy. its no secret some very experienced Stafford regulars are struggling. hopefully all will return to support one of the best tracks in the northeast
That’s good with Tommy back behind the wheel it should give the crew plenty to do during the week, that’s probably what they missed , spending all week getting car back together. Good luck
Swanson did a Stafford promo before the event that talked of challenges and trying new things and in a matter of hours it’s over. A little dramatic isn’t it? Just finish the night like adults, release a heavily sugar coated presser about respecting each other but wanting to go in a different direction and it’s over.
Two successful auto dealership legacy guys that like to play in racing. Perhaps thinking they could find a synergy that would produce results more successful then the sum of it’s parts but didn’t work out fast enough. It’s the SK’s, what exactly did you hope to achieve early boys?
From a distance it sounds like two very similar guys that want to be both driver and the deciders with neither accepting their roll. That’s the second release for Swanson in the last year. The Cassella deal still in place but perhaps on legs that are a little wobbly.
A little bumpy but it will all work out for the best with both guys driving their own stuff.
Good to see TB back at the wheel!
Does Swanson still have his own car?