(Photo: Wayne Riegle | The Podium Finish)
LONG POND, Pa. — Matt DiBenedetto is hungry for his first appearance in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series playoffs. But to make it, he’ll have to survive what he calls “a numbers game.”
“[If we] get the right points and the right finish and make smart days and good days out of it, then we have a good chance at putting it in the playoffs,” DiBenedetto told The Podium Finish on Friday at Pocono Raceway. “We’re kind of having to look at it as a bit of a numbers game.”
DiBenedetto, who’s in his second season driving for up-and-coming Rackley WAR, is taking the team to new heights. The driver with nearly 250 Cup Series starts has eight top 10s this season, including a streak of five in a row since nearly winning at North Wilkesboro Speedway in May.
The 31-year-old from Grass Valley, California paces a group of four drivers searching for the final three Truck Series playoff spots. DiBenedetto, who’s in eighth, leads Nick Sanchez by three and Matt Crafton by four above the cutline. Stewart Friesen sits just one point behind Crafton and below the cutline.
While the points are historically close, DiBenedetto said he hasn’t paid much attention to his competitors. He’s only focused on himself.
“I really haven’t paid a whole lot of attention to them,” DiBenedetto explained. “I’ve kind of just looked at it more from a mathematical standpoint of how we can make the most points for our day. For instance, at Nashville, we didn’t have a very fast truck. We were just off. We knew, but [we thought] how can we make the most of this? We stayed out, we got stage points, we finished third in one of the stages and that got us a lot of points. Then we ended up finishing in the top 10 on a day where we were off.
“This last chunk of races, we’ve been on recovery mode and consistency mode, and I’m really proud of the recovery from that. I would say just as a whole, looking at it from a bigger picture last year to this year, our team is better [and] trucks are better. We’re still not quite where we need to be, but I’m really proud of the growth from last year to this year. We’re a lot more competitive, we have better speed [and] we’re able to run top 10 very consistently.”
DiBenedetto joined Rackley WAR after a two-year stint driving for Wood Brothers Racing in Cup. Last season, DiBenedetto won at Talladega Superspeedway to score his first victory in one of NASCAR’s top touring series. While in Cup, he went winless but qualified for the playoffs on points and finished 13th in the final standings with WBR in 2020.
That experience with Cup points racing translates over to Trucks, he said, although the two vehicle and racing styles are vastly different.
“You’ve got to race a little different in the Truck Series than you do in the Cup Series,” DiBenedetto said. “I’d say the biggest difference is not putting yourself in too many vulnerable or risky situations, because the racing can be pretty brutal. Just kind of minimizing mistakes because there are more mistakes in this series than the Cup Series.
“These races are so short that it feels like we’re on the white flag every lap from the drop of the green. They are very intense from start to finish … through all that, it really takes some discipline to be patient.”
Saturday’s CRC Brakleen 150 at Pocono Raceway is no exception. The race is just 60 laps with stage breaks at laps 15 and 30, meaning there’s an extra emphasis to run well all afternoon.
DiBenedetto will start eighth on Saturday, which will give him early track position in the sprint. He finished 12th in the race last season and recorded a career-best Cup finish of sixth in the second race of the 2020 doubleheader.
(Photo: Trish McCormack | The Podium Finish)
“[Track position] is big time [at Pocono] because once it single files out, it’s really difficult in dirty air to make just straight-up passes,” DiBenedetto explained. “You really got to rely on someone making a mistake, honestly, to make those passes … [it’s] incredibly important to make the right decisions on the restarts. That’s the tricky, but fun part about it.”
Should DiBenedetto make the playoffs, he’s confident about what lies ahead in the first round — three short tracks. The team has had the most speed on short tracks this season, which includes top 10s at Martinsville Speedway and WWT Raceway in addition to a third place at North Wilkesboro.
After Richmond Raceway concludes the regular season, the series goes to Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park, where DiBenedetto finished 11th last season. Then, a stop at the Milwaukee Mile for the first time and then Kansas Speedway ends the Round of 10. DiBenedetto has three top 10s and a runner-up at Bristol in Cup.
“We’ve got some good tracks that truly, if we can make our way into the playoffs … the sky’s the limit,” DiBenedetto said. “We could go out there and really make some hay in the playoffs. I’m proud of where the team is at, that we are in this position and we are in the playoff hunt … it shows that this team’s got good strength and potential behind this.”
Saturday’s CRC Brakleen 150 at Pocono is set for 12 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. Sanchez is on the pole.
