Matt DiBenedetto and his BK Racing team are still riding the high of last Sunday's stellar run at Bristol Motor Speedway.
For this team, finishing sixth in the NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Bristol was like a win for an elite, heavily funded team. Since that finish, and DiBenedetto's emotional reaction to it on live television in the moments following the race, the team has faced a heightened media schedule — and the accolades of many of DiBenedetto's competitors.
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While the team is focused on building on that top finish, beginning with this weekend's Toyota Owners 400 at Richmond International Raceway, it is reaping rewards of the top run.
"It was special for us and I know you saw it on pit road, we were all so emotional," team owner Ron Devine said Friday at Richmond as he sat alongside his driver. "We have a lot of confidence in this guy 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."
DiBenedetto echoed Devine's sentiments. He quickly pointed out that his excitement came not for himself, but for the team as a whole.
Finally, they found a moment to celebrate, a moment when all the hard work finally paid dividends.
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"We have a really close group here at BK Racing and our whole team works together so well," DiBenedetto said. "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.' "
He's not settling for just enjoying his finish, though. DiBenedetto and his team aim for more of the same.
"It was a really fun weekend and it meant a lot to the team and it's good momentum," he said. "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."
Because qualifying was rained out Friday at Richmond, DiBenedetto will start Sunday's Toyota Owners 400 from 36th place. It's just another challenge for driver and team.
DiBenedetto is no stranger to racing success, though. He started racing in the Boxstock division at Cycleland Speedway in California in 1999. In 2007, he was rookie of the year on the UARA Stars Late Model Tour and in 2008 he became the youngest driver to win a feature at Bristol Motor Speedway.
He won races in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East in 2009 and 2011, also beginning to compete on a limited basis in the Xfinity Series in 2009. He debuted that year at Memphis, finishing 14th, and then made six starts for Joe Gibbs Racing in the series the following year with a career-best finish of ninth at Iowa.
He was the 2015 rookie of the year runner-up in the Cup series, and now he's reaching new heights.
Devine says it was J.D. Gibbs who initially mentioned DiBenedetto to him, telling him DiBenedetto was "special."
"I have a lot of respect for the Gibbs organization — [team owner] Joe [Gibbs] and myself have been friends for many, many years," Devine said, "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.' "
Now, everyone understands what the Gibbs organization saw in the driver — if they didn't already.
Matt DeBenedetto: tears of joy at Bristol (via Twitter)
As to DiBenedetto, he's found his schedule a bit more hectic this week.
Not that he's complaining.
It's days like last Sunday that make all the work that goes into a Sprint Cup career worth it.
"It's been cool," he said of his week. "It's neat to get the media attention again for the team and for sponsor purposes … 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.' "
Now, his attention is firmly on the next race.
He and his team must turn their sights to continue the success of Bristol. They face another short track this weekend, one where the racing will also be on Sunday after a change from years past when Richmond was run on Sunday night.
No matter how he runs, though, the team has Bristol to show it just what it is capable of — and to motivate it if things don't go as smoothly from time to time in the future.
And DiBenedetto has Bristol. He won at Bristol at the age of 16 in the UARA Stars Tour race. Now he has his career-best Cup finish there.
DiBenedetto knows which meant the most to him.
"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," he said.