BK Racing owner Ron Devine talked to the media Friday at Richmond and was asked about #83-Matt DiBenedetto’s 6th place finish at Bristol:
Q: How special was last week’s finish for the entire BK Racing organization?
Devine: “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.”
Q: How insistent was J.D. Gibbs that you hire Matt DiBenedetto to drive for you?
Devine: “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.”
And as Paul Harvey would say at the end of his radio show, “Now you know the rest of the story!”
TILL NEXT TIME, I AM STILL WORKING ON MY REDNECK!
