Matt DiBenedetto, and more specifically his fate for the 2024 NASCAR season, has been a hot-button topic amongst NASCAR fans throughout the off-season, after a peculiar divorce from Rackley W.A.R. during the 2023 NASCAR Truck Series Playoffs.
In August, DiBenedetto made his impending free agency public, confirming that he wouldn’t return to the No. 25 Chevrolet Silverado in 2024, after spending two seasons helping to build the single-truck organization.
Three weeks later, after failing to advance to the ‘Round of 8’ in the NASCAR Truck Series Playoffs, DiBenedetto was released from his post early, beginning the process of free agency a couple of months earlier than expected.
Since his release from Rackley WAR, the industry has been buzzing with rumors about possible landing spots for the 32-year-old — ranging from full-time seats in the NASCAR Cup Series to part-time rides with lower-budget Truck Series organizations.
Those rumors were further ignited by a social media post on December 27 from DiBenedetto, which displayed a pen emoji — which commonly indicates that a contract of some sort has been signed.
After four weeks of waiting, the Grass Valley, California native has provided an update, albeit not a positive one, saying: “It’s been a crazy few weeks, but we had a sponsor deal that we had to decide to pull the plug on and move forward from, so unfortunate circumstances.”
In an update video, Matt DiBenedetto reveals that he had a sponsorship deal he "had to decide to pull the plug on."
"So, we're just gonna have to let 2024 racing stuff play out, part-time, whatever opportunities fall our way and are meant to be, and are the right fit."#NASCAR https://t.co/keZoqYzAci
— Joseph Srigley (@joe_srigley) January 19, 2024
Without a major source of funding, the loss of a sponsorship partner leaves DiBenedetto in a holding pattern for the time being, to which he said: “We’re just gonna have to let 2024 racing stuff play out, part-time, whatever opportunities fall our way and are meant to be, and are the right fit.”
Plus, with less than a month until Speedweeks at Daytona International Speedway, plans are seemingly scarce for DiBenedetto — with the odds of him appearing in a NASCAR National Series event at the 2.5-mile superspeedway getting smaller and smaller as the calendar continues to shed pages.
