A Q&A with Kyle Benjamin

At 18, Kyle Benjamin’s stock car career is still relatively young, but he’s already made his presence known on short tracks around the country. A winner in many different racing areas, including the ARCA Racing Series and the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East, Benjamin has been dominant in 2016 with his No. 40 Chevrolet for Rainer Racing with MDM.

Racing role models

“Kyle Busch and Jimmie Johnson - it’s hard to beat those two for different reasons. Kyle, he’s phenomenal behind the wheel and makes so many good decisions, and so does Jimmie. He’s very methodical with what he does, and I like that, too.”

Outdoor adventures

“I like to snowboard. That’s my favorite thing to do away from the track, and that’s in the winter time. In the summertime, it’s mostly wakeboarding and mountain biking.”

Injury prone

“All the crazy stuff I do and the ways I get hurt, it doesn’t match up. I get hurt doing regular, everyday things like falling down the steps and things like that. I don’t really get hurt doing the crazy stuff that I do do.”

Forward focus

“It definitely does because you go back and you think what you should have done differently, and that will eat you up. Especially when you lose a race when you had a good car. But you got to shake it off; you can’t let it hang over your head, and you can’t go into the next week still feeling the effects of what happened the last weekend.”

Dealing with disappointment

“Usually, I’ll think about it that night and maybe the next day then I’m like, all right, I’m not going to think about it anymore. It’s in the past; it’s already happened, and we’re going to move on and do what we do best.”

If not for racing …

“I would be some sort of stunt or daredevil type. Like a Travis Pastrana because I’m always doing crazy stuff like that. Racing kind of keeps me tame because I can’t get hurt, so I can’t go as crazy as I want to do sometimes. Definitely, have to tone it down doing this stuff.”

I hate change.

I’ve been like that for as long as I can remember. My normal agenda is to get as comfortable as possible doing things a certain way and then settle in. Become content, so to speak. I’m a stickler for routine, and it results in keeping with the same, small group of friends.

Change? Trying something new? Meeting different people and seeing new places? No, no, no.

I’ll be honest – it scares me and makes me extremely uncomfortable. But a lot in my life, personally and professionally, has changed in the last few weeks.

When I made the move to North Carolina a few years ago with absolutely no money to survive on my own and no full-time job, I told myself it was all about taking chances. Living the dream. Paying my dues. Plenty of people have done it, I was told. In order to succeed, sometimes you have to take a risk.

For me, that was like being told to jump out of a perfectly good airplane.

Leaving New Jersey was the hardest thing I had ever done. Having always been a quiet, shy homebody, going out into the big, bad world was sure to kill me. I left behind everything and everyone I had ever known. My comfort zone and security were gone.

It shook me, but I knew deep down this was what I wanted and what I needed to do to get where I wanted to be. I moved in with a friend who I didn’t have to pay, instead making up with it in other ways. My full focus went to Popular Speed and I began trying to live to the life and forge the career I longed for.

Success happened quicker than I thought when I began traveling to more races than I probably should have. More than I certainly had the money for. But I made connections, developed friendships and was continually blown away the more people would greet and recognize me. Whether that was inside or outside the media center.

Over time, I took on more responsibility with Popular Speed while writing more and more and more. I got comfortable. I made a home, and I LOVED what I was doing. The stories I got to share, be it race coverage or features (my favorite), were always so well received I knew I wanted more. More recognition, more time at the track, more respect, more hit stories. Everything you think of, I was aiming for.

But all things must come to an end and recently, my living situation and then my time with Popular Speed did. Granted, this was something I had been working for, the next step in the NASCAR journalism ladder, but it was still hard to accept I was essentially starting over. It’s so much easier just to keep on keeping on, only to realize that three, four, five years have passed and you’re still in the same place.

But again, that change thing is scary. I had a great time at Popular Speed, and I appreciated having an outlet where I feel like I wrote great stories. Now it’s time for something different.

As I announced yesterday, my next job is part-time with NBC Sports for the next couple of months. It’s an unbelievable honor to join a great team of online and on-air talent, and I know it’ll be both a great experience and learning opportunity.

But it’s a change in many ways.

I most likely won’t be traveling as much, and my assignments will be different than what I had been doing the last couple of years. It’s OK, though, it’s NBC Sports! As you can tell, I’m very excited about it and I’m thrilled by the possibilities of what it could turn into and what I could get to contribute.

Thrilled and scared and nervous.

As I prepare for this next chapter, which will begin after Daytona, I wanted to let everyone know where my head has been at. Many of you have asked. Some of you said you were praying for me. I have truly been humbled and overwhelmed by all the messages, tweets, Facebook posts, emails, texts, and calls since announcing my departure from Popular Speed. The fact that so many of you cared blew me away.

With yesterday’s news, I saw it again. It left me speechless. You all know I’m just a girl from a small, small town in NJ who isn’t qualified to do anything but talk about race cars, right?

Honestly, though, thank you. Thank you to every single person who cares about what I do, what I write, and how I feel. Thank you to all those who said they couldn’t wait to see what was next.

Well, NBC Sports is next, in addition to my continued contributions to NASCAR Illustrated, which I hope you’ve all subscribed to.

Right now, though, I’m going to continue to regroup, refocus and try to get used to this change thing.