5/8/2025
Matthew Lloyd
Matthew collects a pair of top 10s top open the season
LITTLE ROCK, Iowa (May 8, 2025) -- The 2025 season got started last weekend in Blue Earth, MN. Matthew was able to kick off the new year with a pair of top 10s in his first trip to Golden Spike Speedway.
Friday night featured a ton of curveballs for the track, series, and the racing team. Mother nature delivered a little too much water to get things started at the posted time. Hours of hard work by the track staff and AJC staff finally amounted to racing happening in the evening, but the delay meant some changes to the format. We only had time to qualify and run the A feature on Friday night. Beyond that, the battery for our tachometer went bad, so we had no idea where we were on gearing all night. We were flying blind, so to speak, but still made the best of it.
The night started with a 5th place effort in qualifying. Our first attempt was cut short by a spinning car in our 2-car qualifying runs, so the officials allowed us another chance at it at the end. That proved useful for Matthew, gaining 3 tenths of a second and 4 positions in our second try. That allowed for a 5th place start in the A Feature. Early on in the feature Matthew slid high out of turn 2 and lost a position to fall back to 6th, but made an exciting pass on the outside over the next lap to regain his spot. An early race caution moved Matthew up to 4th, where he ran for a few laps before spinning and bringing out another caution. Matthew restarted at the tail of the field and was able to drive back up to the 7th spot by the time the checkered flag flew.
Saturday's feature saw a return to the typical AJC format, and saw a lot of improvement with the kart and the driver. A larger field was checked in on Saturday, and our night started with a 7th place run in qualifying. Our lap time of a 13.611 was over 41 m/ph top speed (his fastest ever at any track) and a half-second faster than Friday. Come heat race time Matthew started on the outside of the front row, and had to deal with some heartbreak. On the initial start, Matthew jumped out to an early lead! The start was called back for a spinning kart in the back of the field, but Matthew thought they'd called him for jumping! He was much less aggressive on the 2nd attempt, and was stuck on the high side and made a few mistakes. We fell back to 5th.
That put us in a last chance race, and Matthew finally got smooth. He started 5th, but quickly made his way up to 3rd in the short LCQ to put him in much better starting position in the feature. The A feature was good, then bad, then good. Matthew started 7th, but quickly made his way up to 5th to start the race. Unfortunately, Matthew was too aggressive when trying to pass for 4th. He made a mistake and got into the back of the car in front of him. The caution was rightly called on us, and Matthew had to restart at the tail of the field. After that, Matthew put his head down and ran some really, really good laps. He passed 4 karts in pretty quick succession to end his night 8th.
The results didn't show it, but he improved, the kart setup improved, and we felt very good by the time the final checkered flew. It was a fun weekend, and a great way to start 2025. Our next time out will be Memorial Day weekend at University Plains Speedway in Brookings, SD.
Be sure to check out MBTV Sports on YouTube for the full event recording! Also, our website and Facebook page will have various pieces of video over the coming weeks.
Article Credit: Austin Lloyd Racing Media