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Matt Tifft on his return: "I wanted to come here because I’m here to win"

The problems Matt Tifft is having this weekend are very similar to those of any other NASCAR driver – and that’s just fine with him.

Matt Tifft

Matt Tifft

Matt Tifft

Matt Tifft, Red Horse Racing Toyota
Matt Tifft, Red Horse Racing Toyota
Matt Tifft, Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota
Brett Moffitt, Red Horse Racing Toyota, Timothy Peters, Red Horse Racing Toyota, William Byron, Kyle Busch Motorsports Toyota
Matt Tifft
Brett Moffitt, Red Horse Racing Toyota takes the checkered flag
Matt Tifft, Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota pole winner

Tifft, a 20-year-old student at UNC Charlotte, will start Friday night’s Camping World Truck Series race at Chicagoland Speedway in Red Horse Racing’s No. 11 Toyota – his first race since he underwent brain surgery on July 1 to have a low-grade, benign brain tumor removed.

I didn’t want to come here and putter around in the back. I wanted to come here because I’m here to win.

Matt Tifft

Thursday was his first day of NASCAR track activity in more than 2½ months. He was sixth-fastest in the first practice session and 19th-fastest in final practice.

“It’s funny how these things work. There was the excitement getting back in the truck and everything before the first practice and then by the second practice, it was business as usual trying to figure out how to fix handling problems,” Tifft said in an exclusive interview with Motorsport.com.

“We’ve moved way away from brain problems and moved on to just getting our truck handling better. That’s the biggest problem right now and I’m perfectly OK with that. We’re just right back to work.

“Once I was here, I am 100 percent in the zone, just working to get our truck to get as fast as it can.”

The road back

Tifft’s tumor was discovered in a scan that he had asked to be done while he was undergoing treatment for a back issue over the summer.

Following his successful surgery, he has been taking part in various on-track testing with Late Models and in simulators hoping to expedite his return. On Monday, NASCAR confirmed he had obtained medical clearance to return to racing.

Tifft said he was nervous upon returning to the track this weekend, but not for the reason most people would expect.

“I was not nervous for medical reasons, not at all. I was nervous because this is the last race before the Chase and these guys at Red Horse are on top of their game,” he said. “I wanted to make sure I was competitive when I came back. So, I went above and beyond what I needed to.

“I could have done one test and not any kind of training or watching film, but I didn’t want to come here and putter around in the back. I wanted to come here because I’m here to win. All that time just sitting around, you don’t want to come to the track and not be seen as taking it seriously.”

Anyone who has followed Tifft’s recovery process through his Twitter feed the last 10 weeks would know how serious the native of Hinckley, Ohio, has taken his health and his return.

“I never had a doubt in my mind I would make it back this season, now I honestly was probably thinking more like October at the time of my surgery,” he said. “I never stopped pushing myself.

“I did all the research I could to find the things that would help my brain in the recovery process. I wanted so badly to be back as soon as I could.”

The road ahead

At only 20 years old and having experienced a full recovery, Tifft hopes for a long, successful NASCAR career ahead. Already in mid-September, he would typically already be working on next year’s schedule but circumstances have altered his timeline.

“A ton of my focus has been on getting back to race this season and just a little bit on next season. We’ve talked about some of that stuff,” he said. “There was no 2017 until this weekend happened.

“You can talk about it as much as you want, but until you can show people, ‘Hey, I’m OK, I can race,’ it’s hard to take those discussions very far.”

In addition to his racing career, Tifft would also like to help others, especially young people, who have gone through a similar experience. He has already reached out to and began to work with the American Brain Tumor Association.

“One of things that I’ve learned in this area of medical study, is that brain tumor diagnosis have a nasty stigma of ‘that’s it.’ I’m just trying to help people out and provide a platform to show people in similar circumstances that there is hope and you can continue on with your life,” he said.

“They are doing a lot of research now in a lot of top facilities across the country and I would like to help out with that.”

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