Matt DiBenedetto had a solid day on Saturday. His finishing position only said 13th, but he scored 10 stage points (7th, 5th place respectively) in the 325 mile race and walked away in a good playoff position.

“That’s definitely a big deal and a way to rack up some points because we’ve had some unfortunate luck and some bad races recently, so we fell back in points further back than we feel like we are as a team, for sure,” said DiBenedetto about the goal of scoring as many stages points as they could this weekend. “So it’s time to start climbing back up there and this weekend was an example.

“Stage points can just make such a huge difference, especially this point in the year when the point stuff is really starting to settle out a little bit. People are settling in place, so you’ve got to take everything you can get because that makes a big difference as far as securing a solid spot in the playoffs and, for us, really climbing back up in the points to where we think we are running weekly.  Our cars have real good speed, so the stage points are a big deal.”

Saturday’s finish set up him with track position at the start of Sunday’s Pocono 350. DiBenedetto, used that to his advantage again in finishing sixth and ninth respectively in the two stages.

He’d bring his No. 21 Ford home with a top 10 in sixth.

“I think today addressed some of our, we’ve had some races where we’ve kind of been up and down and this run we’re fast and this run we get a little off, so we do very well with communication – me, my crew chief Greg Erwin and our team – we talk a lot, our engineers, multiple, multiple times a week on team calls, so we do an excellent job of communicating to iron those things out and I think this weekend was an example of what we’ve been working on and knowing that we’re capable of doing is addressing that and just having solid days like we did today being in the top 10 from the start to the finish of the day, getting stage points and finishing up there, so we’ve done a good job at working on that and I think we can do a lot more of this moving forward,” DiBenedetto said of his day.

Now, DiBenedetto is +57 points up on the playoff bubble in 14th. It’s his fourth top 10 of the season and fourth top 15 in his last five starts on the year too.

“Yeah, 100 percent,” DiBenedetto said on if he feels like they’re getting closer to being a top 10-15 car. “I think when you’re with a new team working with new guys it always takes a little time to typically figure each other out.

“We’re really trying to get this 21 car where it’s up front every week and I think we’re stepping in that direction.  To be honest, every single racetrack we’ve been to, aside from Darlington, we’ve had top 10 speed at every track, so that’s like unbelievable.  I’ve never had equipment or an opportunity like that much in the past, so that’s the encouraging part and so I knew once we got on track together, I think we can do this very consistently.”

Now, it’s to Indy next weekend for what DiBenedetto said should lead to another solid day next Sunday.

“If you asked me that a couple years ago when we ran the low downforce stuff, I would say the two tracks were completely different, but now that we have the high downforce and less horsepower, they’re actually pretty similar in the fact that it’s real strategy-oriented, extremely track position-oriented.

“You can catch someone. Today, I caught the 10 at the end for fifth by about four to five tenths of a second a lap, so real fast and you just get stuck in their dirty air now.  I’m no stranger.  I’m surprised Steve O’Donnell hasn’t hit me yet because I give him a hard time because the high downforce just makes it so tough to pass, so I hope we can reverse that direction in the future.

“A, it just makes it really tough on the teams and the pit crews and the strategy because you just have to have track position or else you can’t make your way up there.”