In 2008, racecar driver Matt Kobyluck achieved a notable career milestone when he won the NASCAR Camping World East Series Championship. This victory made Kobyluck, who is a member of the federally recognized Mohegan Tribal Nation in southeastern Connecticut, the first Native American to win that NASCAR-sanctioned regional stock car racing series (now part of the ARCA Menards Series East).
“It was a very rewarding season this year,” Kobyluck said in a subsequent interview with the daily digital news platform Indian Country Today (now called ICT). “We have been in this series for 10 years and racing for 15 and this was my first championship. It was a great day and a great accomplishment for the whole team.” Kobyluck added, “Me, personally, being a Mohegan tribal member and having the Mohegan Sun Casino as my primary sponsor was very rewarding. And then to be the first American Indian in the history of NASCAR to ever win a championship and be able to represent Indian country that way was really cool.”
Kobyluck was born on February 19, 1970, in the village of Oakdale, which is within the town of Montville, Connecticut. His racing career began in 1993 when he started competing in the Late Models Division car races at the New London-Waterford Speedbowl in Connecticut. Kobyluck’s large number of wins in those races earned him considerable acclaim for both his poise and skill behind the wheel and helped pave the way for his competition in NASCAR’s premier regional series.
In his interview with Indian Country Today, Kobyluck further emphasized how his team made it possible for him to drive his No. 40 Mohegan Sun Resort Chevrolet to victory in the NASCAR Camping World East Series. He asserted, “Anyone who has been in racing and is successful will tell you that races are not won at the race track. They are won in the shop before you even drive onto the track. All the preparation you do leading up to the event is what will get you the desired results out on the race track.”
Kobyluck’s transportation-oriented leadership and endeavors have not been restricted to his career as a racecar driver. He is also president of a large trucking company based in Montville.
Photo Credit: Steven Harrell (https://www.flickr.com/photos/16837963@N00/3729538935/in/set-72157621600629478) – licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en
For more information on Matt Kobyluck, please check out https://ictnews.org/archive/matt-kobyluck-makes-nascar-history
Transportation History 
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