LATE MODEL RACER MAGAZINE – OCTOBER 2007

MATT DIBENEDETTO – Talent Deserving Opportunity        

Story by Chris Romano

            To hear his mom, Sandy, tell it, there was never a doubt in Matthew Guido DiBenedetto’s mind what he wanted to do for a living.

            “In kindergarten,” said Sandy, “he’d bring home these drawings he did of cars and say ‘I want to be a racecar driver.’”

            A few grades later, at age 7, Matt started racing 125cc karts on dirt. Seven championships later it was apparent to Sandy and everyone else that “I guess he is that good.”

            Sandy and her husband, Tony, realized that Matt’s best chance for continued success didn’t lay in their small California town, but in the Southeast. They made the difficult decision to uproot their lives to help Matt achieve his dream. Matt’s brother is in the Air Force, stationed in South Korea, while his two sisters remain in California. Everyone acknowledges that it’s not easy having the family scattered across the globe.

            “Matt’s brother calls all the time from South Korea,” said Tony, “His sisters support everything we’re doing.”

            “We came from a small town in California, so moving here wasn’t that much of a change. But there were a lot of emotions. When people ask what the toughest thing about it is, I tell them putting my daughters back on an airplane to California when they visit us. And we’ve just become grandparents too.”

            The transition was made easier by the natural attraction to the DiBenedetto’s affable personalities, and the racing community’s acknowledgement of Matt’s talent.

            “We have made more friends here,” said Sandy. “People have just come to us, and all of Matt’s crew are volunteers.”

            “The biggest difference,” said Tony, “has to be the racing. It is different here than I ever would have guessed.”

            Matt DiBenedetto, just turned 16 years old, takes it all in stride.

                        At 11 years old he knew that he wanted to get off of the dirt.

            :I just really wanted to try pavement instead,” said Matt. “I felt like I had accomplished what I wanted on dirt, my first time ever in the class I was winning it, I was competing with some regular Sprint Car drivers, I wanted to get experience in pavement so I could move up.

            “A lot of the dirt transferred over to asphalt and helps your throttle control and car control. I think asphalt is a little bit harder. You’ve got to hit your mark every single lap or you’re going to get freight trained. I like it a lot.”

            The DiBenedettos wound up in Hickory, NC, in the shadow of the legendary track that has launched the careers of several NASCAR Nextel Cup champions. Ironically, says Matt, it wasn’t part of the plan, but an accident of geography.

            “We asked people back in California where we should live,” said Matt. “A lot of them suggested Asheville, and we considered living there for a time, but it was kind of far. Charlotte was too big, too busy. We said, ‘OK, here’s Charlotte, Mooresville and Asheville.’ We picked a point on the map and it was Hickory.

            “We didn’t even know there was a track in Hickory.”

            Matt began his pavement career racing Legends cars at Hickory and in the Summer Shootout series at Lowes Motor Speedway. By the end of 2004 he had wins at Hickory and at Florence Speedway in South Carolina. In August he jumped into a Pro 4 Modified for the first time at Hickory and finished third. The Pro 4s were the next step in Matt’s plan, and little did the DiBenedettos know how right they were in choosing Hickory as the place to relocate.

            “We thought it would be good if I just blended in,” said Matt. “Coming out and winning wasn’t in the expectations. It was a blast. I like Hickory a lot. I thought it was pretty cool to do as good as we did there.”

            In 2005 Matt won 15 of 16 Pro 4 races at Hickory, clinching both the Rookie of the Year title and the track championship. It looked like the DiBenedettos were going to be in Hickory for a while. In the fall of that year Matt tried a Limited Late Model at the track for the first time and finished fourth. The next step in the plan was underway.

            “I actually think going to Limited Late Models from Pro 4s was one of my biggest transitions,” said Matt. “The Pro 4 is lighter and didn’t have a whole lot of power. With the Limiteds you’re going up 150 horsepower and going to a 3,000-pound car from a 2,300-pound car. It was a lot different. It felt like driving a tank around the racetrack rather than a little maneuverable car.”

            Matt adapted quickly again. In 2006 he won the Limited Late Model track championship, scored a win in the Bobby Isaac Memorial event for Limiteds, and was voted the track’s most popular driver. At the Fall Brawl he raced a full Late Model for the first time and finished fourth.

            You might think the next natural step would have been for Matt to emulate his success in Pro 4s and Limited Late Models in Hickory’s Late Model division, but he knew he needed to branch out of Hickory.

            “We were running Hickory a lot because we didn’t have a lot of places to tour around because of my age,” said Matt. “People were saying, ‘He can run Hickory, but he might not be able to run different tracks.’ We knew we had to be able to go around and run different tracks and see how ZI do and get more exposure.”

            The DiBenedettos settled on the UARA-STARS Late Model Tour. The 2007 tour opened at Hickory, where Matt finished fifth. Two weeks later at Concord Motorsports Park, North Carolina’s fastest short track, he won.

            “When we went out and won the Concord race that’s when I really proved myself,” said Matt. “That was probably the most fun racetrack I’ve ever been on. I like the bigger, faster racetracks quite a bit. Everyone was telling me that if you go to Concord and finish in the top 10 it will be really good because it’s a tough track. Greg Marlowe helped me out when we got up there. He’s run there and he showed me the line to run. Once I got comfortable I just set sail and for some reason I felt really comfortable at that racetrack.

            “This division is really tough. I love running all these different tracks and running Bristol twice this year was pretty neat.”

            The rise of this personable, articulate, mature young man has been phenomenal. He’s leading the UARA Rookie of the Year points and sits in the top 10 in the championship. In fact, he even led the points at one time during the season. And now the family is at a crossroads.

            “I’d like to move up another step,” said Matt. “We can’t do that by ourselves, this is the very highest we can go. We’re just kind of hoping for a ride or anything that comes along that we can get. I like the ARCA series and the Busch East series, but obviously we can’t do that by ourselves. Hopefully something will come along.”

            Tony DiBenedetto hopes for the same thing. He too, was surprised at his son’s success at such a young age, but then again, not really.         

            “Yeah,” said Tony, “you never have that expectation, but I never expected it when he was 7 years old either. I was surprised, but not surprised. Our friends asked me if I was really surprised and I said, ‘yeah,’ but they said, ‘We weren’t.’

            “Honestly,” continued Tony, “I don’t know if we’ll be back on the racetrack next year, the funds just aren’t there. If someone gave me a genie in a bottle I’d wish that I could get Matt into Busch East or ARCA.”

            Tony, however, keeps things in perspective, which quite frankly, is rare when it comes to the present generation of racing parents and racing kids.

            “You know what gives me the biggest gratification?” asked Tony. “That grown men who have been racing Late Models for years will sit down and talk with him. Men like Lee Tissot will ask him what he thinks. Matt has become so respected. We raised a straight-A student who respects the world. You’ve got to be proud of that.”

            His mom agrees. “He’s the same kid that we had in California.”

            “Everyone said when we came out here,” said Tony, “that if you don’t have money, go home. Well I tell them that 98 percent of that is true, but Matt is the other two percent. Matt is the two percent that has the talent and the ability to win-over a sponsor.

            “Every member of crew is a volunteer and they give their heart and soul to Matt.”

            And then, adds Tony, there is his son’s dedication.

            “He’s in the gym every day,” said Tony. “He tapes all the ARCA, Busch East and Hooters Pro Cup events just to watch the drivers, and I’ve never told him to do any of that. Understand, this is Matt’s dream, not his parents’.

            “As a father,” said Tony, “how do I give up on that?”