The perfect season: Washington's Matt Greiner wins three track championships

      But the highlight of his season, he said, was a six-day racing binge the week of the Fourth of July.

By Travis Brown

      Washington's Matt Greiner accomplished a lot in his No. 29 outlaw stock car this year. He captured track championships in Oskaloosa, Bloomfield and Memphis, Mo., winning 14 feature races along the way. He also finished third in national points.

      But the highlight of his season, he said, was a six-day racing binge the week of the Fourth of July.

      After racing Tuesday, he made his regular stop at Oskaloosa on Wednesday. On Thursday night he raced in Allison, which is northwest of Waterloo. Each night, Greiner kept getting farther from home, and he and his father, Tom, were staying in hotels. On Friday night, Greiner wrecked in a heat race at Slaton, Minn., and he blew an engine in the feature race. On Saturday, he and his father swapped the motor out, and he finished fourth in a feature race at Slaton. Finally, on Sunday, Greiner raced in Worthington, Minn.

      "I'd never been there before, and we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into," he said. "I started in the middle of the pack and the car was working good. I passed the guy I was fighting for national points position on the last lap on the high side and won the race and just couldn't believe it. I got some nice applause from the crowd and a nice television interview on the local TV station. Then we made about a seven-hour journey home. It was quite the week of racing."

      Greiner, who is president and co-owner of Greiner Buildings, loves racing. He estimated that he drove his stock car in between 60 and 70 races this year, and said that number is probably more than anybody else by about 20. He made appearances at seven different tracks this year.

      "My dad would be the No. 1 factor that would enable me to do that," Greiner said. "If he didn't support me and at times help push the prerogative along, I wouldn't be able to do nearly that many appearances. Also, we've got a business here that we run together. I'm so far still a single guy with no kids. He's done raising his kids. If you factor all that in, we've got some time on our hands and a decent budget. Also, the fact that we were running really good this year helped pay for most of the expenses we incurred. We had a good financial income this year from racing winnings."

      Greiner, 26, began racing go-karts at age 12, and has been addicted to racing ever since.

      "Dad started racing a hobby stock once a week for fun when I was young," Greiner said. "I remember going, and I just decided I wanted a go-kart. One day, he bought me a go-kart, and we started racing. I fell in love with that immediately. I got pretty good with that."

      In fact, Greiner quit racing when he was a junior in high school and didn't pick it back up for several years. Greiner calls those "the worst years of my life."

      When Greiner was a freshman in college, his father built a new stock car, but wasn't sure if he was going to race it. He offered the seat to Matt, and the rest is history.

      Since Greiner graduated from college, he's sunk almost all of his time and money to get his racing fix.

      "Once I got out of college, it freed up time to work on the race car and I had more money to spend on it," Greiner said. "Maybe we went overboard, but we've had tons of fun."

      But as much as Greiner loves racing, he loves winning even more. It's no wonder he's a big Jeff Gordon fan.

      "Winning is my favorite part of racing," he said. "Getting the checkered flag. I don't know if that's proper to say or not, but there's just no other feeling like it. And there's a massive challenge behind getting there. Then when you finally get there, it's awesome. You pull around and take the trophy and shake everybody's hands and get your picture taken. It's phenomenal. I love it."

      Greiner did plenty of winning this season, racking up 14 feature wins and three track championships. He led the national points race for much of the season before finishing third.

      "Winning three track championships was a big deal," he said. "Not very many people can say they ever did that in a year."

      He said the secret behind his success was the work he and his father have done over the years to perfect the car.

      "I've put in lots of seat time," he said. "We ran about that many events last year. I've been racing since I was 12, so there's the experience factor. My dad has been in this deal for longer. He put together a fine motor. Together, working on the chassis setups, we kept getting a little bit closer and closer, and this year we finally nailed a setup that worked great anywhere we went. It was a lot of hard work and finally getting everything to work well between motor, chassis and driver."