No. 83 Toyota gets into mess with a clean-up truck during caution
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SONOMA, Calif. -- With all the rough-and-tumble action typically associated with NASCAR competition on road courses, Sprint Cup Series drivers have come to expect at least a little beating and banging over the flow of an afternoon. On Sunday for Matt DiBenedetto, the contact at Sonoma Raceway came from a least expected source.
A late-race collision with a clean-up truck on pit road looped DiBenedetto's No. 83 Toyota around during the final caution period in the Toyota/Save Mart 350, igniting a string of disbelieving communications over the BK Racing team radio. With his car righted, DiBenedetto rallied to regain seven spots he lost in the spin to secure 29th in the final order.
After the race, the former NASCAR Next driver could only shrug and laugh about the turn of events.
"On that last pit stop, we'd come in and it was a mess to start with, with the clean-up truck and everybody in the way, but that truck was going slow enough to where I could go around him. Then as I was going around him, he sped up," DiBenedetto said. "Got on the gas right as when I'm coming around him and cleaned us out. I guess he wasn't just paying attention or didn't see us -- not sure exactly why. I mean, it cost us quite a few spots, but then we drove back as far as we could. … It didn't really hurt us much other than maybe a spot, but definitely pretty funny. I don't think I've ever seen that before."
If there was such a thing as a Hippocratic Oath among safety vehicles, the fender-bender seemed to break the bond. It was also a suitably zany capper to a road-course race that served up a little bit of everything.
"Of all people to get wrecked by, no race car," DiBenedetto said.