Matt DiBenedetto: From Karts to Cup Racing, the Truck Series and Back to Part-Time Seats

Matt DiBenedetto is an American stock car driver who has raced in NASCAR's Cup, Xfinity and Truck series. He started in karts after a childhood trophy, won the track championship at Hickory Motor Speedway in 2004, and has driven for Joe Gibbs Racing, BK Racing, Go Fas Racing, Leavine Family Racing and Wood Brothers Racing. His first national series victory came in the Truck Series at Talladega Superspeedway in 2022.

Where did DiBenedetto's racing career begin?

DiBenedetto was born on July 27, 1991, in Nevada City, California, and grew up in Grass Valley. He became interested in racing after a Little League trophy around the age of eight, and his father bought him a used kart that produced his first victory.

His father, Tony, had raced an Opel Manta in SCCA and IMSA events during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Tony noticed that his son spent more time watching cars race on television than playing baseball. He also knew that a teammate on the Little League team was competing in mini-kart racing, which is how the kart came to the family.

DiBenedetto then moved up to the UARA-Stars series and raced late models. The family sold its racing equipment in 2007 because of financial pressure. In 2008 he drove for the Fat Head Racing Driver Development Program, where his teammates included Bubba Wallace and Brennan Poole, and team owner Jamie Yelton ran the operation. That program brought him to the attention of Joe Gibbs Racing, which gave him a place in the NASCAR Camping World East Series.

A driver who went from a used kart to a Talladega Truck win, with a near miss at the 2019 Daytona 500 along the way.

How did he reach the Xfinity Series with Joe Gibbs Racing?

DiBenedetto made his Nationwide Series debut in 2009 at Memphis Motorsports Park, driving the No. 20 Pizza Ranch Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing. He ran six races for the team in 2010 and recorded two top-ten finishes, including a tenth-place run at Nashville Speedway.

The years that followed were harder to fund. After he was forced out of the K&N Pro Series East team X Team Racing for lack of sponsorship, he joined The Motorsports Group in 2012 and ran as a start-and-park driver in seven races, finishing 79th in points. In 2013 he drove the No. 37 car for Vision Racing, and he later valued the start-and-park laps for the seat time they gave him.

His biggest chance of that period came in 2014. At Daytona he replaced Jeffrey Earnhardt in the No. 4 JD Motorsports Chevrolet after Earnhardt was injured in a motorcycle accident earlier that week. For the rest of the season he divided his starts between The Motorsports Group's No. 46 and No. 40 cars, scored two top-fifteen finishes at Road America and Mid-Ohio, and finished a career-high 21st in points.

How did his Cup Series career with BK Racing unfold?

DiBenedetto moved up to the Sprint Cup Series with BK Racing in 2015. He failed to qualify at Atlanta and Las Vegas before making his debut at Phoenix, then took over the No. 83 full-time after Johnny Sauter stepped back. He declared for rookie of the year contention that season.

A practice session at Martinsville that year brought him into conflict with Tony Stewart, a three-time NASCAR champion. DiBenedetto moved high in turn three to let Stewart past, but he said Stewart then repeatedly tried to wreck him on the track. He described the episode in strong terms afterwards.

He returned full-time with BK Racing in 2016, although he drove the No. 93 for the Daytona 500. At Bristol's Food City 500 he finished sixth, his first career top ten and the best result of his Cup career at that point. It was also BK Racing's first top ten since 2012. That season he also drove the No. 49 at Homestead to promote a price change for the video game NASCAR Heat Evolution.Other moments were less kind: a crash with Chris Buescher at Daytona, and a concussion from a crash at Texas that kept him out of the AAA Texas 500.

What did his Go Fas Racing and Leavine years achieve?

With Go Fas Racing he drove the No. 32 Ford Fusion from 2017 to 2018, and his best result there was seventh at Daytona in July 2018. In 2019 he drove the No. 95 Toyota Camry for Leavine Family Racing, nearly won the Daytona 500, and finished second at the Bristol Night Race.

At Go Fas he finished ninth at the 2017 Daytona 500, his second career top ten, and eighth at the Brickyard 400 later that year. Statistically he was the team's strongest driver since co-owner Frank Stoddard founded it in 2011. When the team lacked a sponsor for a race in 2018, DiBenedetto asked for help on Twitter, and the response led to Zynga Poker backing and a fan programme called #TeamBurrito.

Leavine Family Racing signed him on a one-year deal with an option to extend, after the team had not kept Kasey Kahne and a planned replacement fell through. In his first race for the team he led a race-high 49 laps at the Daytona 500 before being collected in the Big One with fewer than fifteen laps to go.

In August 2019 Leavine told him he would be dropped after the season. Two days later he led 93 laps at the Bristol Night Race and looked set for his first Cup win. Contact with Ryan Newman cost him the lead to Denny Hamlin with eleven laps to go, and he finished second, his career best at that point.

That season he scored no wins, but he finished in the top five three times and the top ten seven times. He led 152 laps and averaged a finish of 18.3, ending 22nd in the standings. Each of those figures was a career high up to that point.

What did his Wood Brothers Racing years achieve?

Wood Brothers Racing signed DiBenedetto on September 10, 2019, to drive the No. 21 Ford full-time from 2020, after Paul Menard announced his retirement from full-time racing. He qualified for the playoffs for the first time that year, edging out Jimmie Johnson by six points for the sixteenth and last seed.

He opened 2020 with a nineteenth-place finish at the Daytona 500, then tied his career-best second place at Las Vegas. At Talladega later that season he took heavy fuel-mileage gambles and passed Chase Elliott for the lead with two laps to go. A block on William Byron opened a gap for Denny Hamlin, who passed him on the bottom lane on the final lap and won by .023 seconds. DiBenedetto was later penalised for forcing Byron below the yellow line, which dropped him to 21st.

He finished the season 13th in points with a career-high 11 top tens, and he was eliminated in the first round of the playoffs at Bristol. He returned to the team in 2021 and finished 18th in the standings. He missed the playoffs that year, and his best result was a fourth-place finish at Kansas.

How did his Truck Series spell go?

DiBenedetto drove the No. 25 full-time for Rackley W.A.R. in the Craftsman Truck Series across 2022 and 2023. The high point came on October 1, 2022, with a Talladega victory in the Chevrolet Silverado 250, and he reached the 2023 playoffs before leaving the team.

Rackley W.A.R. announced the 2022 deal on January 6, 2022, and confirmed his return to the No. 25 on July 23 of that year for 2023.

His first Truck start came at the NextEra Energy 250 at Daytona, where he dodged many wrecks to finish tenth, the second top-ten result in the team's history. The next week he finished sixth at the Victoria's Voice Foundation 200 at Las Vegas, the best result Rackley W.A.R. had recorded in the series. A first-lap wall strike at Atlanta and a rear gear failure at Circuit of the Americas cost him ground in the early part of the season.

Later in 2022 he was running in the top ten at Nashville Superspeedway when Ty Majeski took him and two other trucks four wide into turn three. That crash ended his race and left him in a must-win position for the playoffs. He recovered to finish seventh at Kansas and tenth at Texas, and he won at Talladega in the Chevrolet Silverado 250 later that autumn. He finished the year 13th in the standings.

The 2023 season started with two wrecks at Daytona and a twentieth-place finish. He then produced six top-ten finishes in a row from the Tyson 250 at North Wilkesboro onward, and a seventeenth at Richmond was enough to qualify for the playoffs. He was eliminated at Kansas. After the Bristol night race, Rackley W.A.R. removed him from the team and named a replacement for the final three races.

Where did his career go after the Truck Series?

DiBenedetto returned to the Xfinity Series in 2024 with RSS Racing and Viking Motorsports, starting with five races in the No. 38 entry. He finished the year 26th in points, then drove the renumbered No. 99 full-time for Viking in 2025 before the team ended the arrangement in October.

His 2024 starts included an eighteenth at Richmond, a twentieth at Texas and an eighth at Talladega. His strongest results that year were that eighth at Talladega and two seventh-place finishes, at Iowa Speedway and at Michigan. In May 2024 the team first named him its primary driver for the rest of the season, and within days it confirmed he would run the remainder of the year with the team.

In December 2024 Viking Motorsports announced it would switch from Ford to Chevrolet and end its partnership with RSS Racing. In 2025 he drove the renumbered No. 99 and opened the season with back-to-back top-fifteen finishes, then took a fifth at the Ag-Pro 300 at Talladega, his best Xfinity Series result. Viking Motorsports parted ways with him on October 13, 2025, and Connor Mosack took over the ride for the rest of the season.

Career summary by series and team

DiBenedetto currently races part-time in the NASCAR O'Reilly Auto Parts Series. His two current seats are a Camaro numbered 35 with Joey Gase Motorsports, where Scott Osteen is also involved, and a Camaro numbered 42 fielded by Young's Motorsports.