Matt Logan (left) and Bud Watson (right) became friends 10 years ago through the online racing game rFactor. The bond between the two strengthened to the point where Watson offered his pro late model to Logan. Logan raced it during the World Short Track Championship at The Dirt Track at Charlotte. In an effort to get into the feature through the B-main, Logan unfortunately wrecked it. Afterward, the two shared smiles as they dismantled the car in the pits.
“[Wrecking a car is] one of those things that when you’re racing, you don’t think about,” said Logan, 36, now of Concord, North Carolina, but originally from Clarendon, Pennsylvania. “[When] they were towing me back to the pits, I was thinking, ‘Man, I just tore his car up.’ I told him that if anything would happen, I would take care of it, but I wasn’t anticipating having to rebuild the whole thing. But, that’s racing.”
Watson may have encouraged his friend to get up on the wheel.
“On Friday night, he qualified good enough to start fourth in the heat race, from which they were taking four cars for the feature,” Watson, 28, of Conneaut, Ohio, said. “I dogged him a little bit that he wasn’t driving hard enough in the heat race.”
Logan finished fifth in that heat. It had been 10 years since Logan last raced. He had spent the past decade growing his setup service business, ML Performance. Logan said the lack of seat time played a role in his B-Main mishap.
“The track was real slimy,” said Logan. “I got in there, sliding in the grease, and got into [turns] three and four way too hard and got into the wall, and that was the end of our day.”
The car incurred damage to mostly the right-front suspension and sheet metal. They sent the car back to Rocket Chassis, where they checked it over, and Watson now has the car back in his shop. Ultimately, Matt Logan and Bud Watson remain great friends.
“I trust Matt with my life,” Watson said. “I trust him with my kids. Him and his wife are de facto uncle and aunt to my children. There are not many people who I’d lend my car to, but he’s definitely one of them.”
The Outside Groove Executive Editor has covered motorsports since 2000. His many awards include the 2019 Eastern Motorsport Press Association (EMPA) Jim Hunter Writer of the Year and the 2013 Russ Catlin Award for Excellence in Motorsports Journalism.
