Matt DiBenedetto – No. 95 Dumont JETS Toyota Camry – Phoenix 2 Preview

DiBenedetto’s Career Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Stats at Phoenix:
Date          Event:                                        S       F        Laps         Status
03/15/15    CampingWorld.com 500           35     35       307/312     Running
11/15/15    Quicken Loans 500                   30     28       217/219     Running
03/13/16    Good Sam 500                          23    20       312/313      Running
11/13/16    Can-Am 500                              32     25      322/324      Running
03/19/17    Camping World 500                  30     29      313/314      Running
11/12/17    Can-Am 500                              30     27      306/312      Running
03/11/18    TicketGuardian 500                   30     25      311/312      Running
11/11/18    Can-Am 500                               27     21     310/312      Running
03/10/19    Ticket Guardian 500                  25     28     308/312      Running
Races     Wins     Top 5s     Top 10s      Poles
Cumulative         9             0             0               0                0

DiBenedetto’s 2019 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Season Stats:
Starts      Wins    Top-5’s     Top-10’s    Poles    Laps Led     Avg. Start     Avg. Finish
34            0             3                7              0              152               20.6              18.4

DiBenedetto’s Career Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Stats:
Starts     Wins     Top-5’s     Top-10’s    Poles     Laps Led     Avg. Start     Avg. Finish
174             0             3             11                0             175                29.1               26.9

From the Driver’s Seat:

Matt DiBenedetto: “Looking ahead to Phoenix this weekend, we had a good Camry for the race out there in March and that was when we were still new to working together as a group that early in the season.  We still had a lot of work to do as a group in order to gel and get organized together, but we had a really fast car running up in the top-12 at one point.  Heading back there this weekend, we’ve come so far together as a team, so I’m looking forward to this weekend.  Phoenix is one of my favorite tracks on the schedule period and it’s a track that always reminds me of Concord (NC) and the half-mile little short track.  I think those two tracks have a lot of similarities except that Phoenix is obviously bigger, but I always enjoyed racing at Concord too.  It should be a fun weekend and we should have a good Dumont JETS Camry this weekend.  Track position will once again be really important as it is most weekends so that we’re not stuck back in the field and fighting that aero-tight handling from dirty air.  It will be nice to have single-car qualifying at Phoenix since for the Fall race, we got held up on our lap since it was still the group qualifying format.  That change will allow us to go out and focus on making a good clean lap.  I love qualifying at Phoenix because you really need to hit your marks, be smooth, and not overdrive which makes it a finesse type of short track.”

From the Pit Box:

Mike Wheeler: “Phoenix was the first short track on the schedule that we went to this year with this new rules package so that gave us all a lot of eye-opening experiences seeing what this package did there.  We’ve obviously learned a lot since being there back in March but notes from that race will still apply as we prep for this weekend.  The track reconfiguration didn’t change much in the way of how we set up our cars, but pit road is a little bit different now compared to most of the other tracks on the circuit since there is a corner to it since the reconfiguration.  The track drives very similarly even though the Start/Finish line is in a different spot.  One of the biggest things about this package is the tire falloff at Phoenix isn’t as great as it is at places like Richmond, and track position is critical enough at Phoenix that sometimes staying out on a caution outweighs new tires.  Obviously, depending on the conditions that you have, that will decide what your strategy will be, but there’s definitely an avenue to go down various paths depending on what you need at that time in the race.

You can play the pit strategy game a little bit there in Phoenix because it is a fairly new pave with low tire falloff compared to other places, but you still will need to keep your hand on the track, and the further back that you are in traffic, the worse that the car is going to handle which will hurt the tires even more.  We’ve got decent confidence heading into this weekend because we ran so well at Loudon, and even in this first Phoenix race this year.  At the end of the day I think that we can qualify well and run up towards the front, but it’s going to take a good execution day to maintain that in order to have a shot at finishing up front.

No. 95 Dumont JETS Toyota Camry Team:
Driver: Matt DiBenedetto              Crew Chief: Mike Wheeler
Car Chief: Greg Emmer               Spotter: Doug Campbell
Engineer: J.R. Houston                Engineer: Etienne Cliche
Mechanic: Bill Mares                    Mechanic: Matt Kimball
Shock Specialist: Sean Studer   Mechanic: Zach Marquardt
Tire Specialist: Tony Ramirez     Jackman: Charles Thacker
Fueler: Bailey Walker                   Rear Changer: Deven Youker
Front Changer: Blake Houston    Tire Carrier: Chris Hall
Hauler Driver: Damon Lopez       Pit Support: Brian Eastland

About Dumont GROUP:

Dumont JETS is a wholly owned subsidiary of Dumont Group, LLC of Wilmington, Delaware that operates an FAA PART 135 Air Carrier Certificate along with an EASA and FAA approved 145 MRO at the New Castle Airport (KILG), an EASA and FAA PART 145 Repair Station at the Central Illinois Regional Airport (KBMI) in Bloomington, Illinois and FAA PART 145 Repair Station at the Fort Worth Spinks Airport (KFWS) in Ft. Worth, Texas.