BRISTOL, Tenn. — at the age of 16, Matt DiBenedetto became the youngest driver ever to win a race at Bristol Motor Speedway.

That was in the 2008 Food City 150 UARA Late Model touring series — a race which also featured an up-and-coming 14-year-old driver by the name of Darrell Wallace Jr. who finished fourth.

Seven years later, DiBenedetto still holds the record as Bristol’s youngest winner ever.

But, when the 24-year-old Sprint Cup rookie takes the green flag in Saturday’s Irwin Tools Night Race, visiting victory lane probably isn’t a realistic goal.

For the small, single-car BK Racing team that DiBenedetto drives for, a lead lap finish in the top 20 is its idea of a victory.

“BK Racing is a lower-funded team, so we’re a small team and wins for us a lot different than what it would be for a Hendrick team,” DiBenedetto said. “When we run top-20, that’s like winning for us. When we qualified 22nd (in the spring race) we out-qualified Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson — a bunch of good cars, and we had probably 10 percent the number of employees they do.”

DiBenedetto added, “A top-10, for a small team, that’s not really feasible. When we have runs in the top-20, those are pretty much like wins for us. Bristol evens out the field a little because it’s such a unique track and there’s less aero involved. It’s a little more of a mechanical/grip track, which kind of evens out the field so we can run well there. The main thing there is just keeping clean and staying on the lead lap as long as possible, having good clean pit stops and maintaining track position.”

When he was in kindergarten, DiBenedetto proclaimed he was going to be a race car driver.

Following a stellar go-kart career in his native California which included more than 100 feature wins, the DiBenedetto family packed up and moved to North Carolina where 13-year-old DiBenedetto continued pursuing his racing dream at Hickory Motor Speedway.

Shortly after his Bristol Late Model win, the team he was driving for restructured and he lost his ride.

As luck would have it, DiBenedetto was one of 10 young hopefuls invited to participate in a driver combine in front of some of top race team owners in the sport.

His performance in that combine led to a driver development deal in 2009 with Joe Gibbs Racing.

Still a teenager, between 2009 and 2010, DiBenedetto won three races in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East and had two top 10s in seven starts in the Xfyinity series driving for JGR.

Since 2011, DiBenedetto has been driving for smaller teams.

As a Sprint Cup rookie in 2015 with BK Racing, DiBenedetto got off to a rocky start, failing to qualify in his first two attempts at Atlanta and Las Vegas.

He’s made every race since, but he hasn’t been able to equal his performance at Bristol this past spring when he qualified 22nd and finished 21st.

“Short track racing is my whole background, that’s pretty much what I’ve done my whole life,” DiBenedetto said. “It brings me back to my roots. I run really well on the short tracks thanks to my background, and Bristol has always been one of my best tracks. I feel like I get around there really well, and we had a good run there the last race we were there. We finished 21st and were running top 20 all day, and ended up 21st which was a good day for us being a low funded team.”

DiBenedetto added, “The last race we were racing around Dale Jr. all day, and for us to be doing that was a good accomplishment. When you’re up in the top-25, you’re with a lot of good company.”

DiBenedetto said most people don’t realize how tough it is for a lesser funded team to compete against the NASCAR juggernauts like Hendrick, Childress, Roush and Gibbs.

“I finished 31st at Indy, and I probably had a shot at 29th because that’s where I ran all day,” he said. “On paper that doesn’t look like a good day. But, the cars in front of us were Danica Patrick and Tony Stewart, so top teams like that are finishing in the upper 20s.”

DiBenedetto added, “When you’re a small team to be running with those teams that have equipment that is far superior, 31st at Indy doesn’t seem too bad. At the beginning of the year, we were lucky to finish 36th. Now we’re disappointed when we finish 30th. So we’ve made big strides from the beginning of the year to now.”