"I've always felt that we could get it done."

Photo by Dwight Drum
Webwork by Gary Larsen

"Oh gosh, I didn't know, I guess I never had that answered. I started racing when I was 19 years old, so I started kind of late, but I did work in the racing business. My dad had a parts business called Benson's Speed Equipment up in Grand Rapids Michigan. I built a lot of race chassis and components for him. I've been involved with that since I was about seven years old. I really didn't start thinking about the driving end of it until my dad decided to retire in 81'. I didn't think about it as far as 'I've got to go race or I've got to do this' when he decided to retire. I was kind of wondering, who was going to race for the company? At that point in time I decided to build a dirt car, of all things, as opposed to an asphalt car. We were selling dirt cars and asphalt cars, but nobody had raced for the business on the dirt-side, so I chose that to start with and had a lot of fun with it."

"That's kind of interesting...I've won in everything that I've raced, except for the first years in NASCAR Winston Cup series. I've always felt that we could get it done. I've always felt that you keep knocking that door you're going to win one, and so many years we've been so close…I never thought…Man, when are we going to finally win one of these things?, but I never thought that we're never going to win one. I feel we still have more wins in us, we just have to do it in a bit more quickly manner than we did."

"You know, I heard very little of it, because outside of trying to get home (laughs) I really never gave it much thought. There have been some questions on a show we do Monday night on the Speed Channel. We had some questions and some thoughts about that, but at the same token, we were down there. It was 10 o'clock at night and it was still raining. It was raining at 7-8 o'clock in the morning when I was leaving Daytona to try to get home to Charlotte. The right thing was done. What do you do? The rules state that once your half way it's considered an official race if it rains, we really couldn't stay down there. I don't know what it did Monday afternoon but there's two sides to the coin...yeah, there's a lot of people who would say, 'Hey the race needs to be finished, it's the Daytona 500,' which is a huge race, there's no doubt, but every race on the schedule is huge, so if you waited three days to run that race then all of a sudden every race that you run the same thing would have to happen, then that changes the rule book.

"There were a lot of people that were on planes Monday morning going home because they couldn't stay anyway. It's a very tough decision. Do I believe it's right or wrong? I think it depends which fan you're going to want to talk to but, I think its fine. There's nothing you can do, it was what it is. You know we have to move forward, these races...we have o go into Rockingham for the first time a day early to get the cars teched, it's just putting these teams way behind if we ended up being there on Tuesday....but , yea I wish the Daytona 500 would have been able to run in its entirety.

"Well....I don't follow baseball...but, I don't know if the rule book says they can finish in the seventh inning, their rule may say they have to complete all eight or nine innings. Ours states…once it's half way. We don't make the rules, we just follow the rules, and that's what the rules are.

"I think what the question would be is....If they change it, say the Daytona is going to be completed in all 500 miles, but then what happens when you go to Rockingham? Then all of sudden it rains there, and then you go to Charlotte, and it rains there, and another track, like I say you're rewriting the rule book. You have to decide where it needs to be when it needs to be....so, they saw what the weather was going to bring. Ok, now the next question …is the TV going to cover the end of the race two days later? Is there going to be any fans there two days later to watch the race? I guess the rules say that once your half way it's completed and it's funny we've had a lot of these races end under these circumstances but, not the Daytona 500 or not that often...I think a lot of people are maybe upset because it's the first race of the year, and that's how it ended up.