Matt DiBenedetto – No. 95 Toyota Express Maintenance Toyota Camry – Homestead Preview

Ford EcoBoost 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway

No. 95 Toyota Express Maintenance Toyota Camry Notes:

DIBENEDETTO BY THE NUMBERS: In four Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series career starts at Homestead, Matt DiBenedetto has an average start of 32.0, an average finish of 30.0, and he’s completed 1,054 of 1,069 (98.6 percent) career laps at 1.5-mile track.

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 Ford EcoBoost 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway (1.5-mile) begins at 3:00 p.m. ET on Sunday, November 17th. The race will be broadcast live on NBC, Sirius XM Channel 90 and MRN Radio.

DiBenedetto’s Career Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Stats at Homestead:
Date                Event:                             S       F      Laps          Status
11/22/15    Ford EcoBoost 400               37     37     263/267     Running
11/20/16    Ford EcoBoost 400               31     27     264/268     Running
11/19/17    Ford EcoBoost 400               31     30     263/267     Running
11/18/18    Ford EcoBoost 400               29     26     264/267     Running

Races     Wins     Top 5s    Top 10s       Poles
Cumulative        4             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
35           0            3                  7              0            152              20.5              18.3

DiBenedetto’s Career Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Stats:
Starts      Wins    Top-5’s   Top-10’s     Poles    Laps Led     Avg. Start      Avg. Finish
175             0            3              11               0           175                 29.0                       26.8

From the Driver’s Seat:

Matt DiBenedetto: “Looking ahead to this weekend, I think that Homestead should be one of the better races with this package, similar to how I thought that Kansas was with this package.  I consider it better in my mind when we’re able to move all around the track and that there isn’t necessarily a preferred lane, so it gives drivers more options when it comes to where we’re running.  The good thing about Homestead as well is that the track surface is a little more worn out, which makes it more fun for the drivers as well, so you should see the lap times fall off more similar to say you would see at a place like Texas.  A little bit of lap time falloff makes it fun for me and if you combine that with drivers having the opportunity to move around and change up their lanes, that makes it better as well in my opinion.  There are some unknowns though as we enter this weekend since we’re not entirely sure what we’ll experience at Homestead with this rules package.  Usually, the high lane is preferred, but I’m not really sure what we’ll see this weekend and I anticipate that possibly changing since we have less horsepower and so much more grip.  In years past at Homestead, we were sliding around there holding on, but it certainly won’t be like that anymore.  This year has been fun because the improvement we’ve experienced has been so much throughout this season that this group is disappointed in top-15’s, which is a nice problem to have.  Everyone on this No. 95 team has worked so hard to improve our overall car speed this year that it’s been fun to see the progression of how good our people are to build a team up to this point in just one year.”

From the Pit Box:

Mike Wheeler: “Homestead is its own unique animal, however, it is the same tire for this coming weekend as we ran at Darlington as well as a similar track abrasion as both Darlington and Atlanta, so you will suffer some tire falloff as well as cars needing overall grip over the course of a run.  The closest track to Homestead that we ran at recently was probably Kansas, but that’s still a fairly high-grip track compared to how Homestead has typically been in the past.  Ultimately, no one really knows what we’re going to have for this weekend until we get down there because no one has been on track there this year.  I still feel that we’ll need to have enough grip in the car to run well over the course of a long run, and enough maneuverability to run a couple of different lanes since it’s always been a top groove racetrack.  The cars this year usually can’t follow each other in traffic because of the detrimental aero-balance you suffer in traffic.  You’ll need to have maneuverability to be able to be able to run a lane or two down as well in order to pass guys.  Homestead is a decent track where it’s provided lane options in the past, but usually over the course of the run, it ended up being the top groove along the wall was the fastest.  For restarts, and even for five or ten laps, you can kind of run the middle or the bottom lane, but generally the fastest guys are usually rim-riding the top.  This package is very different than what we’ve had in the past though with the low horsepower and high downforce, and you can’t follow someone’s tracks like you used to.  It was hard to pass on the long run at Homestead in the past because everyone was faster up top than the in the other grooves, but this package might allow for someone to move down into clean air to be better.  Some of the cars that qualify up front this weekend will not necessarily race the best.  Our game plan will be to make sure that our car handles well and has good grip for a 15-20 lap run.  Setting up our Camry for this weekend will be more than just three laps of speed.  It’s going to be about being able to race well and to have a well-balanced and maneuverable car.”

No. 95 Toyota Express Maintenance 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 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.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of SpeedwayMedia.com

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