Matt DiBenedetto will drive Viking Motorsports’ No. 38 NASCAR Xfinity Series car for at least five races, starting at Richmond Raceway on March 30, DiBenedetto and Don Sackett — the owner of Viking and the CEO of SciAps Inc. — confirms to Frontstretch.
Richmond will mark DiBenedetto’s first taste of NASCAR racing in 2024, as he began the season on the sidelines and without a ride. It will also mark his first start in the Xfinity Series since 2019.
“After starting 2024 with no ride, it has been an interesting test of faith,” DiBenedetto tells Frontstretch. “Although I have some business and things outside of racing, it doesn’t fill the void of racing in NASCAR. This opportunity with Viking and the No. 38 team not only excited the heck out of me for the sake of getting back behind the wheel, but also because I can sense the passion and commitment to the sport from Don and the whole group.
“I’m an all-in kind of guy, so I instantly clicked with Don and the team, and I look forward to helping build the team and relationship for the future.”
The news comes after the No. 38, fielded in collaboration with RSS Racing, failed to qualify for two of the first four races of the season with CJ McLaughlin behind the wheel.
“We started the season with CJ, but he had trouble qualifying two of the four races, so we had to make a change,” Sackett says. “And it turned out that Matt DiBenedetto was available, and we called him up. He wanted to get back into racing, he didn’t have anything lined up. So we decided to try to work together the rest of the season with him.”
Sackett says the plan for the No. 38 team is to run the majority of the remaining 29 races on the Xfinity schedule.
“It’s all the races after Richmond and later with the exceptions of the road courses and the two Darlington [Raceway] races,” Sackett says. “If we could find some sponsor money, we would probably do the Darlington races, so that’s more of a money question. And the road courses, we’re just not set up for that yet. We’re running a part-time season just to try things out this year before going in big next year.”
The hope is for DiBenedetto to run all of those races, but at the moment, he has an agreement to run at least the next five ovals on the schedule.
“We decided to do five races together, which is Richmond, Martinsville [Speedway], Texas [Motor Speedway], Talladega [Superspeedway] and Dover [Motor…
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