By Bob Pockrass
FOX Sports NASCAR Writer
Ryan Preece and Matt DiBenedetto both came to a fork in the road of their NASCAR careers when they found themselves without full-time Cup rides for 2022.
Now they will embark on quite different paths as they try to continue their racing careers.
Who chose the right path? Was there a right or wrong option? They will have to let their performances decide.
Preece has signed with Stewart-Haas Racing, but he isn’t going to race for the team unless one of its drivers can’t race because of COVID or injury. Instead, he will spend time in the simulator testing setups, and he will get 12 races — two in Cup and three in Xfinity with SHR affiliates and seven in trucks with David Gilliland Racing.
DiBenedetto has signed a full-time truck deal with Rackley W.A.R., which is entering its second season of racing in the series.
Both can point to other drivers who took similar roles and helped their careers. Alex Bowman once was a testing and simulator driver for Hendrick Motorsports. He parlayed that into a substitute role for Dale Earnhardt Jr. in 2016 and full-time starting in 2018.
John Hunter Nemechek went to the truck series for 2021 after running Cup in 2020, and while he will return to the trucks in 2022, his name has been mentioned for potential Xfinity and Cup rides.
But whether Preece and DiBenedetto will ever be full-time in Cup again is impossible to predict.
Last week, both drivers talked to FOX Sports about their 2022 rides.
“It can certainly bring a realization that your career could be coming to an end, but I don’t think like that,” Preece said of his search for a ride after a three-year stint at JTG Daugherty Racing. “I was optimistic. … It’s having people around you that push you to be better.
“I didn’t plan on quitting racing. Let’s put it that way.”
With Aric Almirola retiring after the 2022 season, Kevin Harvick in his mid-40s with a contract that ends in two years and SHR drivers Chase Briscoe and Cole Custer likely needing to show improvement to keep their rides, some would argue that Preece is in great position if he does what SHR asks and bides his time. He is represented by Harvick’s KHI Management.
“I’m going to let fate determine that,” said Preece, who ranked between 26th and 29th in the standings in each of his three full-time Cup seasons. “I wanted an opportunity with Ford and SHR. I wanted a shot, and this is it. Anything beyond that is going to come down to performance.”
Meanwhile, DiBenedetto is racing for an organization that was 19th in owner points last season as a first-year truck team with multiple drivers.
“It is exactly what I want,” he said. “I look at it in one perspective, wherever it leads me is great. But I’d say in my mind, my focus or hope is if I could build a home there.”
DiBenedetto, who made the Cup playoffs on points in 2020 and finished 13th in the standings but missed the playoffs and was 18th overall in 2021, originally said he was focused on getting another Cup ride.
But nothing materialized, and he has unfinished business in Cup. Although he has come close, he is still seeking his first Cup win after seven full-time seasons and nine top-5s in 248 career starts.
“I knew I could pick and choose what I want to do or what I don’t want to do because I’ve been really fortunate and blessed to make a great living over the years,” said DiBenedetto, who raced the past two seasons for Team Penske-affiliate Wood Brothers Racing. “I’ve tried to be smart and not live in a crazy way.
“I stopped, I pumped the brakes and made sure I humbled myself, and I’m like, I’m open to anything, and what do I personally want to do — not what the whole world wants me to do.”
Both drivers have heard suggestions that they should have tried other paths, perhaps taking a ride to stay in Cup even if it was not the ride they wanted.
“Me as a race car driver, I’m not happy if I finish 15th, and let’s say we should have finished 20th,” Preece said. “It’s hard to put into words, but there’s a reason I go racing: I go to win races. … I want to be able to know I have that same feeling of having that opportunity to win that day when I walk through that gate.
“If I don’t feel I have that opportunity, it doesn’t feel right to me. I get amped up, I love the challenge. It takes everything, and moving forward, I know I have all the pieces of the puzzle as a race car driver to get the job done.”
Preece knows he’ll have that in trucks. He won last year at Nashville Superspeedway while driving a truck for DGR. So why not try to rejuvenate his career with a full-time truck ride?
“I could have run a truck full-time,” he said. “There was an opportunity there to do that, and there is nothing wrong with that.
“To me, at my point in my career, where I’m at and all the people that have helped me get where I am, I am not done trying to win at this top level. This is what I felt like would be the best opportunity to build toward that.”
DiBenedetto also believes that his situation is what is best for him.
“I’ve done this grind for longer than I remember, and I kind of wanted a change in pace because I was really looking for a bit of a rejuvenation in wanting to do something [and] having a lot of fun,” he said.
“Truck racing is a little more laid-back and fun and has a small-team feel and brings me back to my roots and fits what my path and journey have been.”
Both drivers said they believe they are better off for their journey. Preece competed in Xfinity in 2016 for an underfunded team, convinced his sponsors to back him for a few Xfinity races for Joe Gibbs Racing in 2017, won a race, turned that into a half-season JGR Xfinity ride in 2018 and used that success to get to Cup.
Now he has a role like Bowman, who drove for an underfunded Cup team for a couple of years before taking the job as Hendrick’s testing and simulator driver.
“I didn’t choose this path because it worked out for Alex,” Preece said. “We had different paths and had different opportunities, but we had the same road of fighting and clawing for everything we had.
“I did this because I felt like it was the best move for myself to win races and give myself the best opportunity.”
DiBenedetto drove for underfunded Cup teams for four seasons before landing at Leavine Family Racing for one season and then being a Penske driver the past two years. Over the past year, he has been open on social media about some of his thoughts on politics and society, and at one point, he hoped to land a sponsorship from the conservative media platform Turning Point USA.
“I don’t want to be some controversial guy or have any angle,” DiBenedetto said. “I just want to be me. I love people, and I just want to be myself, and I want to have fun. … I want to go and have fun and be competitive, and this deal is perfect.
“It will take some work getting the team there, but they are committed enough to absolutely do it, and they have really good people.”
Most drivers have confidence, and though their confidence might be a little shaken after losing full-time Cup rides, Preece and DiBenedetto certainly still have the belief that they can produce results.
“I’ve learned to appreciate everything that I have had and continue to work for,” Preece said. “If I do get that full-time opportunity one day, I’m not going to fumble it. I’m not going to let it go, and I’m going to succeed.”
Thinking out loud
Here’s hoping that the Next Gen test this week at Daytona features enough drafting that teams learn something Tuesday and Wednesday that they can apply to the Daytona 500.
Yes, teams are worried about crashing a race car and having enough cars for the first month of the season if they crash additional cars during Daytona 500 race week. But NASCAR and its fans need to see these cars in a draft to learn of any major issues ahead of the sport’s biggest events.
Teams used to test annually at Daytona, and decades ago, they tested twice annually, once in December and once in January. NASCAR realized that those tests were a waste of money, and teams got used to not needing to test at Daytona.
Obviously, the danger of crashing and ruining equipment is why NASCAR will race at Talladega this year (and Daytona in August) without any practice. But this is a special case, and NASCAR needs fans to get excited about the new car. Hopefully teams will see enough benefits to being in the draft for at least part of their time on the track.
Social spotlight
Stat of the day
Five Cup races were won from the pole in 2021 … all by Kyle Larson.
They said it
“It’s just going to change the game in the way you have to absorb it. … Things are moving quick on a mile-and-half with a superspeedway-style feel.” — Kurt Busch on the increased banking at repaved Atlanta Motor Speedway
Bob Pockrass has spent decades covering motorsports, including the past 30 Daytona 500s. He joined FOX Sports in 2019 following stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram @bobpockrass. Looking for more NASCAR content? Sign up for the FOX Sports NASCAR Newsletter with Bob Pockrass!
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Stewart-Haas Racing David Gilliland Rackley W.A.R.