In the Winter of 1964, a group of mop-topped young lads from Great Britain made their first appearance on American television sets. When The Beatles first appeared on the “Ed Sullivan Show” that day, the British Invasion was on. Americans went crazy when The Beatles invaded the States and music in this country has never been the same.

This winter, another U.K. native, Matt Harris, is hoping to make a similar impact in stock car racing that The Beatles did on rock music years ago.

BDI Racing announced today the signing of “The British Bulldog,” Matt Harris for a run at the 2007 Winter Heat Legends Car Semi-Pro Championship at Lowe's Motor Speedway (NC) with an eye at climbing the ladder towards stock car racing's highest levels in the coming years.

“The Winter Heat is a great opportunity for me to get more experience here in America,” said the 21-year-old Winchester, U.K., native Harris. “The Winter Heat Series has an interesting mix of oval races and some road course races. I'm quite excited about those road course races in particular. I come from a road course racing background, so I hope to do well in those, but I also don't want to be known as just a road course racer.

“I want to do well here, so I want to do well on the ovals too. I'm looking at the Winter Heat as the first step on the ladder. I'm going to work to hone my skills and do so outside the limelight. Obviously I want to make it all the way up the ranks, but first I want to do well in the Winter Heat.”

With an already impressive lineup of young talent in the BDI Racing stable, team owner Bob Dillner, who is a NASCAR NEXTEL Cup television commentator for SPEED Channel, is proud to have an accomplished road racer-turned-aspiring oval racer added to the organization.

“When I first heard of Matt Harris, I did not know what to expect,” admitted Dillner. “Here was a racer from England wanting to make it in the US. In fact, one of his first comments to me was that he wanted to be the first British driver in the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series. He did not have any oval experience and that is one of the reasons he wanted to compete with BDI Racing.

“We took him in during July and August and put him into one of BDI Racing's Legends Cars at Lowe's Motor Speedway's Summer Shootout. All I can say is that I was thoroughly impressed in his driving, feedback and outgoing personality. Together with Matt, and our other young drivers like Zach and Nick Stroupe, we feel we have a bright future in driving racing development.”

Harris may be a relative newcomer to American oval-track racing, but he was able to get some seat time inside a BDI Racing Legends Car for several events at Lowe's Motor Speedway during the competitive Summer Shootout Series. On a break from his British GT Championship Series events, Harris found his first experiences on an oval to be a drastic departure from the road racing circuits he had been succeeding on throughout Europe in recent years.

“I certainly learned what it felt like to be hit in the Summer Shootout,” said Harris. “I've never had so much contact in a race before, but that was a lot of fun. I'm not used to getting beaten around and doing the beating around like you have to do in these cars. I learned a huge amount in those couple of weeks, especially about how to race on an oval. The Summer Shootout was a good introduction, but I hope to carry on that learning into the Winter Heat.”

Harris has competed with sports cars at such historic facilities as Le Mans , Rockingham and Silverstone in the GT Porsches in Europe , but the motorcycle engine-powered Legends Cars proved to be a completely different animal than the European sports cars.

“About the only similarity is that they're both cars,” added Harris. “They both have four wheels and an engine, that's about it. It's a completely different form of racing. But car control is sort of like riding a bike. It sort of gets ingrained in you and you just keep doing it no matter what kind of car you're in. The setup knowledge I've gotten over the years is essentially null and void, but I've been working to learn the cars and how they work more and more.”

The 2007 Winter Heat Series kicks off December 5th on the 1/5-mile oval track at Lowe's Motor Speedway. Four oval races and four road course races make up the Winter Heat schedule that runs through January 26th .