BK Racing driver Matt DiBenedetto and team owner Ron Devine were made available to the media at Richmond International Raceway:
RON DEVINE, team owner, BK Racing
How special was last week’s finish for the entire BK Racing organization?
“It was special for us and I know you saw it on pit road, we were all so emotional. We have a lot of confidence in this guy (Matt DiBenedetto) right here and I say he’s kind of like, ‘my guy,’ because we found each other along the way. We were excited to put him in a race car and we kind of took a chance on him, but he deserves it and I think he showed it last week. Think about, we’ve been out here for five years and that’s our best finish and it was real emotional. Even that last lap, we’ve taken the white flag in 10th by the way and came back 25th, and this time we took the white flag in sixth and came back sixth. It was really special for us and I can’t say enough about him and about this race team. It really speaks to how hard these guys worked all winter putting the cars together and their commitment to make something happen. Now that we’ve finally had some success with it, it just felt great.”
How insistent was J.D. Gibbs that you hire Matt DiBenedetto to drive for you?
“I’m glad you asked that, the first person that mentioned Matt DiBenedetto to me was J.D. Gibbs and he said, ‘Ron, this guy is special.’ I have a lot of respect for the Gibbs organization – Joe (Gibbs) and myself have been friends for many, many years so I said, ‘Let’s take a look at him.’ We looked at his test when he was over there and then we started just examining him and J.D. was the first one that said, ‘Hey, we really like this young man and we think he’s something special and you should get him.’ For that, we thank you J.D. Gibbs and we wish you all the best with all that you’re going through. That organization and us both being Toyota, we have a great relationship anyway, but he is just a great friend and he was very kind to send him our way.”
Do good races like Bristol help give the team momentum to get through some of the bad days?
“I think it is important and I think it lifts the whole organization and it proves that they can do it and run with these guys. I’m not going to kiss him anymore, I can tell you that. I’m done doing that until he does something else. I think it just makes us excited to continue on and I think that at the end of the day you have to have a reason to believe. We’ve had fast race cars and we’ve managed to mess them up each week if you look at our Fontana car, he came from three laps down to be back on the lead lap. He also slid through the pits and that wasn’t any fun. And he backed over the rear tire changer’s hose and we ended up with a speeding penalty and every other kind of penalty. It does lift the whole organization and then Monday to see the shop guys, let me tell you something, at six o’clock Monday morning that parking lot was full. Those guys were excited to come back to work. From that perspective, you can’t say enough good things about it. Let’s hope we can back it up. We had a nice finish at Phoenix, but we also had a fast car at Phoenix. It starts with a fast car and that starts at the shop, that starts with Toyota and that goes back to what you do to get here. Then the report card is starting to look better for us. We love it and hopefully we can get some momentum from it. I don’t think we’d be in the media center if he hadn’t run sixth. Thank you for having us here today and thank you for the question.”
How have the local sponsorships come about for this weekend?
“Doug Fritz (CMO, BK Racing), he used to be the president here at Richmond, he joined our organization a couple of months ago and he’s been working all day, every day to put sponsorships on the car. We’re building that side of the business. We tried to get our performance in place and tried to get our structure together and now we’re going out and trying to build the business side of it. I give a lot of credit to the stuff on the car to Doug. Matt’s (DiBenedetto) making it easier to sell, no question. We have Union Bank joining us this week as an associate sponsor and they’ll be here. E.J. Construction and Sweet Frog will be there and also Science Logic on our 93 car with Ryan (Ellis). We have a lot of associates and I know Dave Moody was reading the list of them Monday on the radio and that’s part of being successful in sport is that those things happen. We’re excited to be local and it’s a home track for us so you see us picking up a lot of sponsorships from our relationships, but I really give Doug a lot of credit for putting that all together. Him and his staff have done a nice job putting that together so far. He’s only been at it a couple months and I think better things are coming in that area.”
MATT DiBENEDETTO, No. 83 E.J. Wade Construction Toyota Camry, BK Racing
As the driver, how special was last week’s finish at Bristol?
“Obviously as Ron (Devine, team owner) said, that was special for the whole team. I think that’s what I was most excited about – not for myself, but for my team because we’re like a family and Ron and I are like family. We have a really close group here at BK Racing and our whole team works together so well. They work so hard, they put in countless hours during the week and do whatever is necessary for me to be behind the wheel of a race car, which is a privilege. I was excited for those guys and then when I go into the race shop this week and see them telling stories about the weekend and they’re all smiling and them coming up to me saying, ‘Man, I was crying too, don’t worry.’ It was a really fun weekend and it meant a lot to the team and it’s good momentum. If we can continue to take advantage of those good days when we have a good handling car and we hit it right then we’re going to have a good season. I’m proud of them.”
What did it mean for Carl Edwards to talk about your Bristol run after his victory?
“That was really cool that he (Carl Edwards) said that, that meant a lot. There are so many things that so many of the drivers said that was overwhelming how much support we had. I think what he was meaning by that, it’s cool and they understand our situation and they understand that we’re a smaller team and not working with the same resources that we do. They’re kind of almost expected to win, the powerhouse teams, but surely it’s never easy to win in the Sprint Cup Series. Carl is an incredible driver along with all those guys. It was cool that he paid such a compliment knowing that a smaller team like us that we’re growing and to finish sixth was a like a win and then some for us. It was neat for him to say that and Dale (Earnhardt) Jr. tweeted at me and was saying a lot of nice things and Clint Bowyer, AJ Allmendinger on ‘Race Hub’ and Kenny Wallace, Michael Waltrip, Darrell Waltrip – the list kept going on and I was overwhelmed looking on Twitter at all these guys supporting. Kenny Wallace saying, ‘Let’s vote Matt into the All-Star race.’ It was a crazy week. Going back to your question, for Carl to say that was very neat for us.”
How was this week different for you?
“A little bit less sleep than normal, I’ll tell you that. It’s been cool. It’s neat to get the media attention again for the team and for sponsor purposes and it’s really cool having E.J. Wade Construction on the car and having some new folks on the car to get them some good publicity. This is a good week for them to come on. I’m just happy that we can get them some good publicity, it helps our team as a whole and it helps our moral. For me, this week was definitely busy. I was on my phone pretty much every hour of the day with back-to-back radio interviews so it was cool. My wife may not have liked the lack of spending time together, but it was neat for all of us. She was like, ‘Man, you get to feel popular this week.”
Does the switch from night to day racing here at Richmond change your strategy for race day?
“Yeah, it will be a little bit different racing during the day at Richmond. From my experience of racing in the day due to rain last year it gets quite a bit more slick. It’s actually a big change because this track does get pretty worn out. Tires fall off a lot more and then when you race during the day it exaggerates that a lot. But, everybody is in the same situation so no big deal there. It won’t change our game plan too much. We’ll try and practice when we do race trim stuff and focus a little more on long runs and making sure it hangs in there. But, no, I’m excited to come here. Short track racing is my whole background in racing. It’s what I grew up doing so anytime we come to a short track it’s right at home and comfortable for me. I’m excited.”
What do you think of the new format in the XFINITY Series with the heat racing?
“I really like it. I’m a big fan of it. I think it’s cool and it brings you back to the older days. Reminds you of some dirt racing and ties in a lot of things together. The ‘Dash for Cash’ and all of it makes it more exciting to watch and more exciting as a driver and more intense and I think we saw at Bristol that the racing was great in the XFINITY Series and both series. Great racing and with the heat races and then the main event, I guess you call it, being shorter it was kind of on go mode from the beginning. So, it was cool. I like the format a lot.”
Did you set a record in Bristol as the youngest driver to win at 16 years old?
“I was 16 years old when I won at Bristol Motor Speedway in a Late Model in a UARA-STARS Touring race so obviously from that day forward that place had a little bit of a special place in my heart and it’s typically been pretty good to me.”
Is your biggest accomplishment finishing sixth at Bristol last Sunday or setting the Late Model record at 16?
“Man, everything at that place has been cool but honestly as far as more of a dream come true standpoint it was cool to win there of course and drive on top of the building but man it was really hard to beat finishing sixth in a Cup race and competing with guys I’ve looked up to my whole life since I was a kid and I bought their merchandise when I was a kid at race tracks going to my first NASCAR races so that’s a little bit tough to beat the sixth place finish last week.”
