Longtime MDIR Announcer Joins PDRA Team

PITTSBORO, N.C. (August 30, 2015): Fifteen years ago local Maryland racer, Chris Matters, had a hunch he would make a great drag race announcer. So when Maryland International Raceway put out the call for a new announcer, he put his name in the hat and was hired on the spot. Matters has been a regular MDIR announcer ever since. Now he has been named the newest member of the Professional Drag Racers Association announcing team. Matters will join Carl Robinson as a tower announcer, while Derrick Beach will remain the roving pit reporter for PDRA TV.

From his first night on the mic at MDIR, it was clear Matters’ hunch was right. He was a natural. He created a niche for himself in the small tire doorslammer world, where he also competes. In between deployments with the Navy, where he’s been an active serviceman for the last 13 years, Matters has also announced for the Pritchett Brothers’ 1320X Shows and their Ultimate Outlaws Shootout, Holcomb Ford’s Civil Wars, events put on by Donald Long, the NMRA, NMCA, and LSX Challenges, as well as the Yellow Bullet Nationals.

“I had a degree in Communications and had a radio show in college, so I knew I would be comfortable behind the microphone,” Matters said of his initial venture into announcing. “My father was a mechanic and I had been around cars my whole life. I knew I could talk about them, growing up with a love of muscle cars. I learned a lot about traveling around the country and working with a series from the Pritchett Brothers. I had deployments in ‘06, ‘07, ‘09, '13 and 2014. To those guys credit, they told me when I got back I was their guy. So every time I got back from deployment, and they had races, I would go with them. From there it just kept growing, the more I announced, the more people asked me to come to their tracks or events.”