Matt DiBenedetto

With its current crop of three NASCAR Sprint Cup drivers averaging just 24 years old, it’s no secret the value that Joe Gibbs Racing places on finding young talented race car drivers.

Eighteen-year-old Matt DiBenedetto has made quite the impression on the racing community since signing with Joe Gibbs Racing’s driver development program prior to the 2009 NASCAR season. It took just two races in NASCAR’s Camping World Series East to find victory lane, winning at Tri-County Raceway on April 25. In June, he made his first appearance ever on a road course at Watkins Glen and showed no signs of intimidation, winning the pole and finishing fifth. Then, on June 26 he went to New Hampshire and led off a weekend that proved to a be a JGR sweep in Loudoun by winning the Camping World Series East race on Friday (teammate Kyle Busch would win the Nationwide Series race on Saturday and Joey Logano captured the Sprint Cup Series win on Sunday). Proving adept once again on a road course, he captured his second pole of the season at Lime Rock and was dominating the race before being wrecked late while in lapped traffic.

The results in Camping World Series East confirmed what JGR had suspected and provided the opportunity for DiBenedetto to prove himself a quick learner ready to make the next step up to the NASCAR Nationwide Series.

That opportunity came in October when Matt made his Nationwide Series debut in Memphis driving the #20 Pizza Ranch Toyota. Once again the talented young driver was impressive despite raising the level of competition. Although he had never appeared on the track in Memphis before, Matt qualified fifth for the race and ran as high second. When trouble found him midway through the race and forced him to the back of the field he maintained his focus and made an amazing run back into the top-five before contact from behind forced him to settle for a 14th-place finish. Although he had hoped for better his debut was an enormous success and set the stage for his Nationwide Series races in 2010.

Matt moved to North Carolina from Northern California at the age of 13 to pursue a career as a race car driver and over the past four years has established himself as one to watch.

Matt has made impact at each level of his racing career including winning just his third Late Model race in March 2007. He was named United Auto Racing Association Stars Tour Rookie of the Year in November 2007 after posting two feature wins and finishing fourth in championship points that year. Last May, Matt entered the record books as the youngest driver to win at Bristol Motor Speedway when he captured the UARA Stars Late Model Tour race.

Born and raised in Northern California, Matt’s interest in racing started at a very young age when his father was flipping through the channels on television and he caught a glimpse of a NASCAR race. He made his father go back to the race and sat focused on the television fascinated by what he saw.

Matt received a four-wheeler on his fifth birthday that he immediately started to drive as fast as it would go. Unfortunately for Matt that wasn’t fast enough.

When he was six years old his father was handing out trophies to his Little League baseball team and introduced his son as his “little Jeff Gordon who likes baseball but loves racing”. One of the other fathers in attendance approached them afterward and mentioned that his son was into racing as well and invited him out to mini sprint car race. Matt was immediately hooked. His father bought him an older used go-kart at first to make sure Matt was serious about racing. Once that become obvious his father invested in a new kart and Matt responded by winning his first race in his new ride. From there it was on to the dirt tracks and Outlaw Karts where he captured five championships before making the move east and adding two more championships on the asphalt tracks in North Carolina.

Matt is an avid football fan and currently resides in Hickory, NC.

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