Matthews grew up to become a racing enthusiast at a young age, beginning his career at age 15 at Pompano Beach Speedway in Florida. He proved himself as a skilled Modified division driver, winning 50 races in 1954 alone. His nickname "Banjo" was given to him by fellow competitors who noticed his thick-lensed glasses, which reminded them of a banjo. NASCAR owner Bud Moore recalled that people started calling him "Banjo Eyes" on first impression, and the nickname stuck.
Matthews made 51 starts in the NASCAR Grand National Series — what is now the NASCAR Cup Series — recording 13 top-ten finishes and earning three pole positions at the Daytona Beach and Road Course, Daytona International Speedway, and Atlanta International Raceway. His best finish was a second place at Atlanta. He was strongest on superspeedways, averaging around 15th place there, while road courses were less suited to his style, where he averaged around 39th. He drove 26 of his 51 races using car number 94. In 1963, Matthews made the deliberate decision to stop driving and focus entirely on building cars, a transition that would define the rest of his career.
Matthews launched his car-building career through Holman Moody's Ford factory team before establishing his own facility, Banjo's Performance Center, in Arden, North Carolina in 1970. His talent for constructing competitive race cars quickly attracted the biggest names in the sport. As a car owner, Matthews fielded entries for Fireball Roberts, A.J. Foyt, Junior Johnson, Donnie Allison, and Cale Yarborough. His ownership tenure ran from the 1957 Southern 500 through the 1974 Southeastern 500, a span in which his drivers won 9 races and claimed 14 pole positions across 160 starts.
It was as a car builder, however, that Matthews left his most enduring mark on NASCAR. From 1974 to 1985, cars built in his shop won 262 of 362 Cup Series races — a staggering 72 percent of all victories in that twelve-year stretch. The peak of this dominance came in 1978, when every one of the 30 Cup races that season was won in a car built by Matthews. His cars carried the 1976, 1977, and 1978 NASCAR Cup Series champions to their titles. He also served as co-crew chief alongside Junior Johnson for Jack Ingram in 1975.
Matthews was posthumously inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1998, two years after his death. During his lifetime he received the Buddy Shuman Award, given for outstanding contributions to NASCAR, and the Smokey Yunick Award, recognizing exceptional mechanical ability. He was inducted into the National Motorsports Press Association Hall of Fame in 1996, the same year he died. In 2022, he was inducted into the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America, further cementing recognition of his lasting impact on the sport.
Matthews' personal life was marked by loss: his wife Penny died of cancer in 1984, and Matthews himself spent his final two years in declining health before dying in a nursing home in Hendersonville, North Carolina on October 2, 1996. His son Jody took over the family business following his death.
For sim racing purposes, Matthews represents the craft and engineering culture of the NASCAR Cup Series in its golden era — the 1970s and early 1980s — when a single skilled fabricator operating out of a small North Carolina shop could dominate the entire championship.
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