Matt DiBenedetto

DiBenedetto finished a career-high 21st in points.

His father, Tony, who raced an Opel Manta in SCCA and IMSA in the late 1970s and early 1980s, noticed he preferred watching automobile racing on television over baseball.

DiBenedetto's father knew that another player on his son's little league team was competing in mini kart racing so he bought him a used kart which a young DiBenedetto drove to his first victory.

He later moved up to the UARA-Stars series, racing late models.

Matthew Guido DiBenedetto (born July 27, 1991) is an American professional stock car racing driver.

He last competed full-time in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, driving the No. 25 Chevrolet Silverado for Rackley WAR.

DiBenedetto has also competed in the ARCA Menards Series and ARCA Menards Series East, as well as late model stocks, and winning the track championship at Hickory Motor Speedway in 2004.

DiBenedetto first showed an interest in auto racing after receiving a little league trophy around age 8.

In 2007, DiBenedetto's family sold all their equipment due to financial stress, from then on starting in 2008 Dibenedetto drove for Fat Head Racing Driver Development Program in the UARA-Stars as a teammate to Darrell Wallace Jr.., Brennan Poole, and FHR team owner Jamie Yelton.

There, he caught the attention of Joe Gibbs Racing, and later ran in the NASCAR Camping World East Series for them.

DiBenedetto made his NASCAR Nationwide Series debut in 2009 at the Memphis Motorsports Park and drove the No. 20 Pizza Ranch-sponsored Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing.

DiBenedetto raced part-time in the No. 20 car in 2010.

His first race of 2010 came at Nashville Speedway.

DiBenedetto had a solid car and ran well all night.

Eventually scoring a 10th-place finish.

His next race came at Road America.

DiBenedetto ran six races for Joe Gibbs in 2010, with two top-ten finishes.

While running 11th he had an axle problem due to running over the curbs too hard, and that led to him falling many laps down.

After being forced out of K&N Pro Series East team X Team Racing due to lack of sponsorship, DiBenedetto then joined The Motorsports Group midway through 2012 and ran as a start and park driver for seven races finishing 79th in points.

In 2013, DiBenedetto joined Vision Racing to drive the No. 37 car part-time in the Nationwide Series and also started and parked the few races he was in.

Dibenedetto later looked back at the start-and-park time as valuable for the seat time it gave him, which paid off later in his career.

During the 2014 season's Subway Firecracker 250 at Daytona, DiBenedetto replaced Jeffrey Earnhardt in the No. 4 JD Motorsports Chevy during the first caution due to Earnhardt suffering a fractured collarbone in a motorcycle accident during the week.

For the second race he joined The Motorsports Group, where he start-and-parked the No. 46 Chevrolet for 12 races and raced the rest with the No. 40.

He scored two top-15 place finishes at Road America and Mid-Ohio.

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; he split the No. 83 during the year with Camping World Truck Series driver Johnny Sauter.

After Sauter drove the No. 83 in the Daytona 500, DiBenedetto failed to qualify in his first two attempts at Atlanta and Las Vegas before finally qualifying for his Sprint Cup debut at Phoenix.

When Sauter eventually decided not to race at any other Cup race after the Daytona 500, DiBenedetto 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 three-time NASCAR champion Tony Stewart.

The incident occurred when DiBenedetto tried to merge on the track behind Carl Edwards and the gap closed ahead of him.

With Stewart fast approaching down the backstretch, DiBenedetto moved up the track in turn three to let Stewart pass.

"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," DiBenedetto told Foxsports.com.

"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".

In 2016, he made his return in the Xfinity Series driving the No. 10 Camry for TriStar Motorsports at Fontana, where he started 33rd and finished 40th after starting and parking.

At the Fall Texas race, he crashed into the outside wall in turn 4 ending in a concussion and not racing in the Cup race the following day.

He has previously competed sporadically in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, last competing for Joe Gibbs Racing, almost winning Road America in his line outing in 2019.

Nine years after his last start in the series with JGR, he returned to the team in August 2019 for the Road America race.

He led the most laps and was in second position, when he spun off the track on the final lap at the final corner of the race.

Prior to that, DiBenedetto competed full-time in the NASCAR Cup Series for seven years which included making the playoffs in 2020.