Bass Pro Shops NRA Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway
No. 95 Toyota Express Maintenance Camry Notes:
· DIBENEDETTO BY THE NUMBERS: In nine Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series career starts at Bristol, Matt DiBenedetto has an average start of 28.0, an average finish of 19.7, and he’s completed 4,488 of 4,511 (99.5 percent) career laps at the half-mile high-banked track, making it one of his best tracks on the circuit.
· THE TOYOTA EXPRESS MAINTENANCE DIFFERENCE: When your Toyota needs factory-scheduled service, Toyota Express Maintenance (TXM) helps keep our guests moving with quality, speed and value. Toyota Express Maintenance provides precision service that’s precisely timed to fit within the busy schedules of Toyota owners. The pit crew-inspired approach helps get our guests in and out quickly, all at the right price with the quality they expect from a Toyota dealer. Toyota Express Maintenance emphasizes quality workmanship, competitive pricing and fast service. Services performed under Toyota Express Maintenance include oil and filter change, brake inspection, tire rotation, fluid inspection/replenishment and multipoint vehicle inspection. Additional expedited services are available.
· RACE INFO: The Bass Pro Shops NRA Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway (0.533-mile) begins at 7:30 p.m. ET on Saturday, August 17th. The race will be broadcast live on NBCSN, Sirius XM Channel 90 and PRN Radio.
DiBenedetto’s Career Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Stats at Bristol:
Date Event: S F Laps Status
04/19/15 Food City 500 22 21 508/511 Running
08/22/15 Irwin Tools Night Race 42 33 493/500 Running
04/17/16 Food City 500 30 6 500/500 Running
08/21/16 Bass Pro Shops NRA Night Race 18 17 500/500 Running
04/24/17 Food City 500 32 19 498/500 Running
08/19/17 Bass Pro Shops NRA Night Race 34 26 496/500 Running
04/16/18 Food City 500 24 21 497/500 Running
08/18/18 Bass Pro Shops NRA Night Race 29 22 496/500 Running
04/07/19 Food City 500 21 12 500/500 Running
Races Wins Top 5s Top 10s Poles
Cumulative 9 0 0 1 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
23 0 2 4 0 50 21.4 20.4
DiBenedetto’s Career Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Stats:
Starts Wins Top-5’s Top-10’s Poles Laps Led Avg. Start Avg. Finish
163 0 2 8 0 73 29.7 27.7
From the Driver’s Seat:
Matt DiBenedetto: “I like all short tracks, so of course I’m looking forward to getting to Bristol this weekend. Bristol has always been one of my favorite tracks to go to because it’s such a fast and fun high-banked track where you really need to be up on the wheel all day hustling the car. All the work that you have to do inside of the car throughout the race at Bristol makes it a place that really fits my style of driving. The cars have gotten so fast around Bristol lately that it’s not quite as much of the bumping, routing, and gouging each other that we used to see there because we’re now driving on the razor’s edge, and if that stuff happened, it would be so much easier to crash or get crashed. When we raced at Bristol earlier this season, we had the most green-flag passes and we really didn’t touch anybody all day since you just can run a different line than the person in front of you in order to try and get by. My expectation this weekend is to win the race. When we go to a 1.5-mile or two-mile track I feel like sometimes we’re just hoping for a top-15 finish, but coming to a place like Bristol this weekend we’re really shooting for a top-five run since those goals and expectations of mine are different depending upon the track. We as a team can make a bigger impact at some tracks versus others where it’s not just car speed, but it’s car handling and drivers working their guts out inside of the cars.”
From the Pit Box:
Mike Wheeler: “I’m looking forward to going back to Bristol this weekend. Obviously, we have some good notes for there from the spring race and it was one of our better early season performances of the year. Hopefully with everything we learned in that first race, as well as everything we’ve learned over the course of the season, we can perform even better this weekend. Since they applied the PJ1 there to make it two different lanes, it definitely made it better for passing and multiple grooves. There are still basically only two main grooves and not three or four. Saying that, passing is somewhat difficult, but when you do have a better car, it is very possible to make up a lot of spots. A challenge of Bristol is that the track is ever-changing and as the rubber gets laid down, the PJ1 picks up, and as the temperatures change, it seems like you might have a good balance at one point during practice in the morning, but by the end of practice, it’s definitely different. One of the battles you face there is trying to understand how the track is going to change over the course of the weekend. The night race is a change from the spring race at Bristol, but obviously we’ve learned a lot over the season thus far so that makes things change as well, but ultimately your race notes from the first Bristol race should still apply to this night race. A lot of what we go through on a normal weekend will still apply, even though it is a night race compared to a day race.”
No. 95 Toyota Express Maintenance 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: Brian Eastland Rear Changer: Deven Youker
Front Changer: Adam Hartman Tire Carrier: Chris Hall
Hauler Driver: Damon Lopez
About Toyota:
Toyota (NYSE:TM), creator of the Prius hybrid and the Mirai fuel cell vehicle, is committed to building vehicles for the way people live through our Toyota and Lexus brands. Over the past 60 years, we’ve built more than 38 million cars and trucks in North America, where we operate 14 manufacturing plants (10 in the U.S.) and directly employ more than 47,000 people (more than 37,000 in the U.S.). Our 1,800 North American dealerships (nearly 1,500 in the U.S.) sold nearly 2.8 million cars and trucks (2.4 million in the U.S.) in 2018 – and about 87 percent of all Toyota vehicles sold over the past 16 years are still on the road today.
