Matt DiBenedetto

Did You Know?

• At the 2016 Food City 500 at Bristol, DiBenedetto finished sixth, giving BK Racing its first top-ten finish since Travis Kvapil's eighth-place run at Talladega in 2012.
• In 2017, DiBenedetto drove a Reddit-sponsored car in the Monster Energy Open, after the community nearly voted him into the All-Star Race the previous year.

Racing career

Matt DiBenedetto got into racing after his dad noticed something. When Matt was around eight, he got a Little League trophy, but he'd rather watch car races on TV than baseball. His father, Tony, had raced an Opel Manta in SCCA and IMSA back in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Tony found out another kid on Matt's team was doing mini-kart racing, so he bought Matt a used kart.

Matt drove that kart to his first win. He then moved up to the UARA-Stars series, racing late models. In 2007, money got tight, and his family sold all their equipment. Starting in 2008, he drove for the Fat Head Racing Driver Development Program in the UARA-Stars, alongside Bubba Wallace, Brennan Poole, and team owner Jamie Yelton.

That got Joe Gibbs Racing's attention, and he later ran in the NASCAR Camping World East Series for them. DiBenedetto made his NASCAR Nationwide Series debut in 2009 at Memphis Motorsports Park, driving the No. 20 Pizza Ranch Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing. He ran part-time in that car in 2010. His first race that year was at Nashville Speedway, where he had a solid car and finished tenth.

At Road America, he was running eleventh when he hit the curbs too hard, broke an axle, and fell many laps down. He ran six races for Joe Gibbs in 2010, scoring two top-tens. After losing his ride with the K&N Pro Series East team X Team Racing because of no sponsorship, he joined The Motorsports Group in the middle of 2012. He start-and-parked for seven races, ending up 79th in points.

In 2013, he drove the No. 37 car part-time for Vision Racing in the Nationwide Series, also start-and-parking the few races he entered. He later said that time was valuable because it gave him seat time that paid off down the road. During the 2014 Subway Firecracker 250 at Daytona, he replaced Jeffrey Earnhardt in the No. 4 JD Motorsports Chevy after Earnhardt broke his collarbone in a motorcycle accident earlier that week. DiBenedetto then went back to The Motorsports Group, start-and-parking the No. 46 Chevrolet for twelve races and racing the rest in the No. 40.

He got two top-fifteen finishes at Road America and Mid-Ohio, and ended the season a career-best 21st in points. DiBenedetto moved up to the Sprint Cup Series in 2015. He was originally intended to drive the No. 83 Dustless Blasting and No. 93 Toyotas for BK Racing on a part-time basis. After failing to qualify at Atlanta and Las Vegas, he finally qualified for his Sprint Cup debut at Phoenix.

He took over the No. 83 full-time and declared for ROTY contention. At Martinsville Speedway during a practice session, DiBenedetto was involved in an incident with Tony Stewart. DiBenedetto told Foxsports.com, "When I got to (turn) three I didn't want to hold him up, so I just pulled up high and let him go by. I got completely out of his way, but that wasn't enough.

He tried to wreck me a few times, brake-checking me and flipping me off around the whole track." After the incident, DiBenedetto called Stewart "an arrogant prick."

DiBenedetto returned full-time with BK Racing in 2016. At Daytona, he crashed with Chris Buescher on lap 92 in what Buescher called the "hardest hit of his career," though the two were not injured. In the Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway, DiBenedetto finished sixth, a career-best at the time, his first career top ten and the first for BK Racing since Travis Kvapil's eighth-place finish at the 2012 Good Sam Roadside Assistance 500 at Talladega Superspeedway.

DiBenedetto missed the AAA Texas 500 after suffering a concussion during the previous day's Xfinity Series race and was replaced by Jeffrey Earnhardt. He was cleared to return at the following race in Phoenix. For the season-ending Ford EcoBoost 400 at Homestead, he drove the No. 49 to promote the video game NASCAR Heat Evolution price change to $49.99. On December 8, 2016, DiBenedetto announced he had parted ways with BK Racing.

Two days later he announced that he would drive a single-car effort for Go Fas Racing in 2017. In the 2017 Daytona 500, his first for Go Fas, DiBenedetto finished 9th for his second career top 10. At the 2017 Brickyard 400, DiBenedetto qualified near the back of the field but managed to avoid the late-race melee to pick up another top-ten finish for the No. 32, finishing 8th. Soon after, DiBenedetto, crew chief Gene Nead, and Go Fas extended their contract to the 2018 season.

However, Nead left for personal reasons in late February. Before the spring ISM race, DiBenedetto reached out on Twitter that his team had no sponsors for that race. Denny Hamlin, Kevin Harvick and Darrell Waltrip began to donate money to fund a sponsor, and the team later received Zynga Poker sponsorship. Later that season, in July, at Daytona, DiBenedetto drove the No. 32 Zynga Poker Ford Fusion to another top ten finish, this time 7th, for the team's best finish.

On September 7, 2018, DiBenedetto announced that he would not be returning to Go Fas Racing in 2019. On October 10, it was announced that DiBenedetto signed a two-year contract with Leavine Family Racing to drive the No. 95 Toyota Camry starting in 2019.

Personal life

It states he was born on July 27, 1991, and his father is Tony DiBenedetto, who raced an Opel Manta in SCCA and IMSA in the late 1970s and early 1980s. No other personal details are provided in the source.