MARTINSVILLE
Preview and Post Race Reports

Johnny Benson - Post Race Report

Race:  Kroger 250 (Race four of 25)     Track: Martinsville Speedway
Date:     Saturday, April 9, 2005
Started:     17th          Finished:     17th
Laps Completed/Laps Completed:          250/250
Points Position:     Eighth (no change from last week)

Johnny Benson and the No. 23 team headed to Martinsville knowing that they needed to make the star-studded field on time in order to race in the Kroger 250.  Because the team did not attempt all 25 races during the 2004 season, they were in the same boat with the other competitors that did not race on a weekly basis.  There were only six provisional spots for 14 trucks, so the team knew that it was going to be tough, and they must not make any mistakes to get into the field. 

During the two-hour practice session, Benson told his crew that the truck was handling well, and it showed on the time chart.  The No. 23 Toyota Tundra was second-fastest on the chart, and the Bill Davis Racing crew felt confident that the truck would make it into Saturday’s race. 

When Benson went out to qualify, he said that they truck’s handling became extremely tight, which slowed his time.  The team lost three-tenths of a second from its practice time and had to wait until the end of qualifying to see if it would be in the show.  Benson and the No. 23 team made it into the show by one one-hundredth of a second and started Saturday’s race from the 17th position. 

As soon as the green flag waved, Benson told crew chief Greg Ely that his Tundra was tight everywhere.  During the third caution on lap 25, Benson sacrificed track position and brought his truck to the attention of his crew for chassis adjustments.  The team made major track bar and wedge adjustments to free up the truck.   

Benson restarted 28th on lap 34.  Benson told his crew that the changes helped, but the truck needed more of them.  The team took the opportunity to make more changes during the next caution, and on lap 58, Benson told his crew that the balance was much better.  

By lap 110, Benson had moved up into the 14th position.  The team was looking for another strong run, but the truck’s handling started to go away as the race progressed.  By lap 200 of the 250-lap event, Benson said his tires were worn out, causing the truck to handle extremely loose.    

When the caution flag waved on lap 209, the Benson pitted for fresh tires. With less than 50 laps to go, the team was pushed back to 21st.  During the next 35 laps, Benson tried to work his way through the field and wound up 17th when the checkered flag waved. 

The team did not lose any ground in the points race and is still holding down the eighth spot.  

Benson Quote:
“It was a tough day for the No. 23 team.  We tested here a couple of weeks ago, and I thought that it would help us but the truck was extremely tight all day.  It could have been a lot worse, we did not lose any ground to the point leader and brought the truck back in one piece.   I am looking forward to going to St. Louis knowing that we do not have to make the race on time and can focus our efforts more on race setups rather than qualifying.”

• This week’s race truck for Martinsville Speedway is Chassis No. 23-35.  This is a new truck to the No. 23 Bill Davis Racing team.
• What a stat…In 28 career NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series starts Benson holds 19 top-10 finishes, which is 67 percent of his total starts.
• Looking back…In 1995, Benson finished third in his first Craftsman Truck Race at Martinsville Speedway, right behind his current teammate Mike Skinner. 
• Tested and Approved…The No.23 team tested at Martinsville Speedway on Thursday, March 24.
• Listen and watch … The Kroger 250 is scheduled to start at 1 p.m. EST Friday, April 9. It will broadcast live on Speed (TV), MRN (radio) and XM Radio.

Johnny Benson On Martinsville:
“The experience at Martinsville will help, but on the same token, a bunch of guys in the series like Hornaday and Skinner have been there several times, and I only have two starts there in the trucks.  With the new brakes, experience is out the window.  You better be up on the wheel all day.  Teams with some experience and good people will run faster than the other teams.  The more competitive the teams get, it gets it get harder to pass.  It is really hard to get back to the front, which means that you cannot make mistakes to get a solid finish

“Dennis Setzer is one of the best short track drivers and has won some short track races, along with Jack Sprague.  With all the talent in the series, just being a good ‘short track’ driver does not mean that you are going to go to the winner’s circle.  This just shows how competitive the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series has become in the last couple of years. 

“My No. 23 Bill Davis Racing team has been right on track this season.  We have had some great runs.  We are moving forward with our program.  Toyota is going to get stronger and stronger as time goes on, and that goes hand-in-hand with our program at Bill Davis Racing.  I look for great things this season and beyond out of our No. 23 team.”

 Crew Chief Greg Ely On Racing at Martinsville
”We had a good test.  I am really excited about going back to Martinsville with a new truck.  Last year, we struggled with Johnny’s feel at all the short tracks.  At the test we hit on some things that we feel are really going to help us not only at Martinsville, but also at all the short tracks this year.  Martinsville is about being around at the end, which goes along with Johnny’s mentality, so if we get there we should have a solid top-10 finish. 

“Three races so far this year, and we have had to battle back from adversity in all three events.  We have had a truck capable of winning at every race track, and we are looking forward to putting it all together at Martinsville Speedway and getting the finishes that we deserve.  They guys at the shop are working hard, and I just want to thank them all for all of their hard work.” 

TOYOTA PREVIEW - MARTINSVILLE

THIS RACE:  The Kroger 250 will be the 13th NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series (NCTS) race at Martinsville Speedway.  There will be 10 Toyota Tundras in the field.

LAST RACE:  In the most recent NCTS race at Atlanta Motor Speedway (March 18), Chad Chaffin and Robert Huffman were the first Tundra drivers to cross the finish line.  Chaffin, started 13th and led 11 laps en route to a seventh-place finish in the No. 30 Germain/Arnold Racing Tundra.  Huffman, driver of the No. 12 Darrell Waltrip Motorsports Tundra, started 15th and finished 10th.  Mike Skinner, driver of the No. 5 Bill Davis Racing Tundra, qualified third at Atlanta and led the field for 29 laps (9-37) before being forced to pit after contact with the wall.

POINTS PACE:  After the first three races of the 2005 season, four Toyota drivers are among the top-15 in the NCTS championship point standings.  Johnny Benson is eighth in the standings with 401 points, 119 points behind leader Bobby Hamilton.  Tundra drivers behind Benson in the standings are 10th-place Robert Huffman (378 points), 13th-place Todd Bodine (357 points), and 15th-place David Reutimann (347 points).

LAST YEAR AT MARTINSVILLE:  A year ago, in the Spring NCTS race at Martinsville Speedway (April 17), Toyota driver Mike Skinner led 38 laps and crossed the finish line fifth -- the top finisher among eight Tundra drivers.  David Reutimann (8th) was the only other Toyota driver to record a top-10 finish.

RETURN OF D.W.:  Darrell Waltrip will put on his driver’s suit one more time as he returns to the seat of the No. 11 Toyota Tundra for the NCTS race at Martinsville.  Last year, Waltrip started the Spring race at Martinsville (24th) and also competed at Indianapolis Raceway Park (28th).  During his NCTS career, Waltrip has made six starts at Martinsville, with his best results being a fifth-place (1996) and a pair of sevenths (2003).

WHAT D.W. LIKES:  "When I go to the truck races, I go there with the same intensity, desire and commitment that I’ve always had," explains Waltrip.  "I go to have fun, too.  The things I enjoy are being at the track, having my own car or my own truck team, and having my guys to hang out with and just talk racing."

TEN TUNDRAS TEST:  All 10 Toyota NCTS drivers tested their Tundras at Martinsville late last month.  Johnny Benson, Todd Bodine, Chad Chaffin, Shige Hattori, Robert Huffman, Bill Lester, David Reutimann, Mike Skinner, Darrell Waltrip and Brandon Whitt participated in the March 24 test.

MARTINSVILLE TEST TALK:  “The Martinsville test was great and one of the best days I've had at the race track in a long time,” says Darrell Waltrip.  “I was the fastest truck there according to our watch.  We all had electronic timing and scoring -- what we set up with the Pi System.  I ran a 19.99-second lap and I think Mike Skinner was next quickest with a 20.10.  We made long runs -- including two 50-lap runs -- and my Tundra stayed really consistent and good.  We were very pleased the truck.”

MIKE HAS ONE:  Mike Skinner has one NCTS victory at Martinsville, winning the 1996 race at the track.

CHAD HAD ONE:  In his first NCTS start at Martinsville, Chad Chaffin had a memorable race day.  “The first time I raced a truck at Martinsville was in 2003,” says Chaffin, driver of the No. 30 Germain/Arnold Racing Tundra.  “I actually thought we were going to win the race.  We led a lot of laps and had a pretty dominant truck most of the day, before Dennis Setzer passed me for the lead.  We were running second with a few laps to go -- and I thought second-place finish was ‘in the bag’ -- when we ran out of fuel.”  Chaffin, who led 80 laps in the race, eventually crossed the finish line 26th.
 
FIRST IMPRESSION:  “I was intimidated coming here the first time for the Craftsman Truck Series because I had always seen people burning their brakes off at Martinsville when I would watch the races on TV,” explains Chad Chaffin.  “I had raced on a lot of short tracks, but nothing like Martinsville.  It takes a lot of discipline to run Martinsville because you can’t spin the tires coming off the corner and you can’t overuse the brakes going into the corner.  The problem I have is sometimes I’m not the most disciplined driver.”

TODD TALKS MARTINSVILLE:  “It will definitely be different running at Martinsville than at the speedways we’ve raced on the first few weeks,” says Todd Bodine, driver of the No. 66 Fiddle Back Racing Tundra.  “I’m looking forward to racing at Martinsville.  I grew up around the track, graduated high school about 45 minutes from the track (Rocky Mount, Va.), and remember watching my brothers (Geoffrey and Brett) race Modifieds at Martinsville.  I also won a Cup pole (2001) at the track and have a few top-10s there.”
 
BENSON BEFORE:  Johnny Benson, driver of the No. 23 Bill Davis Racing Tundra, has 20 NASCAR Cup starts at Martinsville, along with three NCTS starts at Martinsville (1995, 1997 and 2004).  “The trucks are fun to race at Martinsville, but it’s a track that’s brutal on the truck bodies,” says Benson.  “Martinsville is a place where people seem to think, ‘Well, we can just run into each other because it’s a short track.’”

MARTINSVILLE MAN:  One person who has more experience than most drivers at Martinsville won’t be in the starting line-up.  Jeff Hensley, who has hung up his driver’s suit and now serves as crew chief for Mike Skinner’s No. 5 Bill Davis Racing Tundra, knows Martinsville as well as anyone.  Growing up in Ridgeway, Virginia, just six miles from Martinsville Speedway, Hensley spent considerable time at the track and is very familiar with the circuit.  He competed in 10 Busch Series races at Martinsville between 1982 and 1985, recording six top-10 finishes.

MARTINSVILLE MEMORY:  “The first time I raced at Martinsville was in 1982,” says Hensley.  “I think it was the first year of the Busch Series.  I had run a race at Caraway Speedway and decided to try and make the Martinsville race.  There were 50 or 60 cars there and I had to run a qualifying race just to get into the 250-lap feature.  I managed to finish second in the heat to make the race.  Then we ran the big race -- running against guys like Jack Ingram, Tommy Ellis and Tommy Houston -- and we finished ninth.  It was a big deal just to make the race, let alone finish in the top-10.”

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