NASCAR: Matt DiBenedetto ready to chase 100th win for Wood Brothers
Matt DiBenedetto is now the driver of the #21 Ford for Wood Brothers Racing. The team sit at 99 wins and DiBenedetto is looking to make it 100.
2020 presents another opportunity for Matt DiBenedetto and this may be his most unique one yet. He has been tapped as the guy to to try to go deliver the Wood Brothers their 100th win in the NASCAR Cup Series.
Wood Brothers Racing are arguably the most famous team in NASCAR history. They have been showing up to the race track every year since 1953. In the last 66 years, they have had 48 different drivers start in a combined 1,579 Cup Series races. They sit at 99 wins, the most recent one coming with Ryan Blaney at Pocono Raceway in 2017.
DiBenedetto will be entering his sixth full season in the Cup Series this year. In his first five seasons, he raced for three different teams: BK Racing in 2015 and 2016, Go Fas Racing in 2017 and 2018 and Leavine Family Racing in 2019.
The most success he had was with Leavine Family Racing last year. He recorded three top five finishes, the first three top five finishes of his career, and four more top 10 finishes. One of those top five finishes was a career-high second place finish at Bristol Motor Speedway in August, when he was leading with just over 12 laps to go before Denny Hamlin passed him for the win.
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DiBenedetto is now going to a team that have been revamped since the emergence of Ryan Blaney in 2015. Wood Brothers Racing formed a technical alliance with Team Penske ahead of the 2015 season, and that relationship has stayed strong. Now DiBenedetto is essentially in Team Penske equipment.
Not only does DiBenedetto get to drive the Team Penske cars, he gets to call the Team Penske drivers his teammates, and he is excited to work with them. Two of them, Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano, are champions who can help DiBenedetto out in 2020, and Blaney is also in the mix as their teammate.
If DiBenedetto is able to get Wood Brothers Racing their 100th win, it would also be his first career Cup Series victory.
“There would be a lot of water works in that celebration,” the 28-year-old Grass Valley, California native told Beyond the Flag.
DiBenedetto is known to let his emotions show, and a win for his new team would bring a ton of them. He does not want to stop at one win though. He feels like this is a team that can win many races and be a playoff contender.
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The biggest thing for Matt DiBenedetto and Wood Brothers Racing is to control what they can control. If they can do that, DiBenedetto feels like he will be the guy to bring home their 100th win.