After ‘being smacked in the head 1,000 times,’ Matt DiBenedetto at peace in NASCAR career
As he continues down a winding career path, Matt DiBenedetto is taking his hands off the wheel.
That’s unusual for a NASCAR driver, but the Camping World Truck Series driver is taking life as it comes, a shift in his mindset that came after a tumultuous last few years in his racing life.
“I’ve kind of dropped what my plans are and what I want to do and more so just let it happen as we cruise along. Trust God’s plan, because every time I try and intervene, I mess everything up,” he said ahead of Saturday night’s DoorDash 250 at Sonoma Raceway.
The California race is one that DiBenedetto had circled as the one he was most excited for before the season even started, he said.
It’s been a place of success for him. In 2019, he finished fourth in the Toyota/Save Mart 350 as a Cup Series racer for Leavine Family Racing. At 27 years old, he appeared poised to build off the success.
That ascension never materialized, instead turning into a steep decline.
DiBenedetto went from being in the Cup Series to competing in the Truck Series — two NASCAR levels down — for a nearly brand new team.
Leavine dropped him after that 2019 season. He moved to Wood Brothers but didn’t last there past the 2021 campaign, replaced this year by Harrison Burton. In those three seasons, he finished 22nd, 13th and 18th in points, respectively, in the Cup Series with no wins and only reaching the Cup playoffs once, in 2020.
DiBenedetto found himself without a Cup Series opportunity for 2022. He moved down, racing full-time in the Truck Series for Rackley WAR — a team in just its second full year in the Truck Series.
His struggles have continued, even at the lower level of competition. He ranks 13th and would miss the playoffs if they started today. Through 12 races he has no top-five finishes, including at Sonoma on Saturday where he finished 10th.
“We’ve had some tough circumstances, some rough luck,” he said. “It’s been crazy, a crazy first part of the season. You know, a cut tire when we’re running good at Charlotte … it just seems like it’s been one thing after another.”
DiBenedetto’s frustration with the lack of results is slightly tempered by his knowledge of the team’s limitations, he said.
Rackley WAR’s inexperience and resulting mistakes have combined with lesser financial resources to create the issues that have bit his team through the first half of the year, he noted.
But the racer remains optimistic about his squad’s long-term possibilities.
“I think people are seeing we’re starting to clean those things up, having smoother runs,” he said. “We’re starting to execute and put it all together.”
Even if DiBenedetto and Rackley turn their season around, he said he isn’t looking to jump back to the Cup Series. He’s enjoying the Truck Series, calling it refreshing, and said he isn’t here for the short term.
When asked if he knew about the potential openings for next season, he said he hadn’t “paid the slightest bit of attention.”
On the surface, that lack of urgency to get back to the highest level seems puzzling, especially for someone who’s been in racing since he drove go-karts as a seven-year-old.
But DiBenedetto’s contentedness is borne out of an increased perspective about the role racing plays in his life.
“I just have more mental clarity than ever driving a race car,” he said. “Is your life staked in racing in a sense? Yes. But also at the end of the day, man, it’s our job and we’re lucky to be doing it. I have a more balanced approach to it.”
He detailed his previous approach — one consumed by the stress of a negative outcome. He’d obsess over the consequences of not winning a race or finishing in the top five to the point that going to the racetrack became torturous.
“It’s absolute torment, mental torment,” he said. “Then things go wrong and then my poor wife has to deal with me where I could go home and throw things, I’m so angry.”
DiBenedetto looks back on that time in his life with a certain measure of regret, saying he was silly for how he handled himself.
He explained the stress that built up in him and those around him because of the uncertainty and unknowns the future provided, calling it an emotional roller-coaster.
“My wife would be crying, family’s a mess, we’re down in the dumps,” he said.
His own mindset contributed to that, he said, calling his previous self-complacent and entitled. Over time, he began to realize that racing in the Cup Series and having a career centered around racing that always allowed him to “put food on the table” wasn’t a given.
His new mindset is based on that appreciation for what he does. He appreciates going to the racetrack and driving that truck rather than looking at it with derision as the symbol of his demotion.
That shift in mentality has helped how he feels at the racetrack. That previous mental torment is now replaced by a sense of relief.
“Through being smacked in the head 1,000 times,” DiBenedetto said, “by now I’ve learned I’m not in control.”
This story was originally published June 12, 2022 at 6:00 AM.
