🇧🇷 Rafa Matos

Rafa Matos is a professional driver racing in the Trans-Am TA2 championship, a single-class stock car series, for Stanton Barrett Motorsports. He holds a rating of 3,472, placing him at entry-level professional level; a driver at this standing competes regularly in national and regional championships but typically faces fields where semi-professional and amateur competitors are common. Matos has raced stock cars, single-seater cars and sports cars across 17 indexed seasons since 2004, amassing 174 starts.[1]

Matos won the Star Mazda Championship in 2005 with Ocean Tomo Racing, taking four wins from 21 starts in a junior single-seater series. He later competed in IndyCar between 2009 and 2011, starting 38 races with 24 of those runs on oval tracks. His career has been anchored in Trans-Am TA2 since 2018, where he holds three championships: 2021 and 2024 in addition to a 2018 title. Across 68 TA2 starts he has taken 17 wins and 35 podiums, making the class his primary competitive focus. He has also raced in Stock Car Pro Series, taking one win across 38 starts, and made brief appearances in IMSA WeatherTech multiclass endurance racing, SKUSA SuperNationals karting, and a Mustang Challenge start in 2025.[2]

In his most frequent competitive setting, Matos runs ahead of Doug Peterson and Tom Sheehan, both regular TA2 opponents; Peterson is a competitive amateur with a Bronze grade and considerable experience across three series, while Sheehan is semi-professional and has matched Matos' full-season commitment to TA2. Against stronger professionals elsewhere, Matos has finished ahead of Bertrand Baguette, an elite professional and two-time champion across Formula V8 3.5 and Super GT, ten times in their meetings, and has beaten Ty Gibbs, an elite professional and two-time ARCA Menards Series champion, in three head-to-head races. His 2026 Trans-Am entry marks an expansion beyond the TA2 class where he has built his reputation.