Race/Date:    Built Ford Tough 225 presented by the Greater Cincinnati Ford Dealers – July 14, 2007

Location:       Kentucky Speedway – Sparta, K.Y.

With a stunning average finishing position of 6.5 at the 1.5-mile Kentucky Speedway, Johnny Benson and his TCUV Tundra were looking for another strong finish this weekend.

Benson and the No. 23 Toyota Tundra team had an incredibly fast truck during both practice sessions Friday and finished the day with the fifth-fastest truck overall.

The team was feeling extremely confident as Saturday’s afternoon qualifying session approached.  With the sun blazing over the track and no grip on the surface, Benson was only able to muscle out a time of 31.621 seconds, which placed him in the 11th position for Saturday’s night race.

At the beginning of the race, Benson reported to his crew that the handling of the truck was very loose.  Despite trying his hardest to drive through the handling issue, Benson soon reported that the truck was slamming hard on the left front.  He figured he could have a bad set of tires.

Benson maintained his position the best he could, but he was relieved when the caution flag waved on lap 52.  He pitted for four tires, fuel, rubber and a trackbar adjustment and restarted 11th on lap 59.  He returned to the pits a few laps later to enable the crew to tighten the rear lug nuts.  The stop dropped him to the 18th position.

The No. 23 Tundra’s handling was now growing tighter, but Benson continued to plow forward.  He came to pit road again under caution on lap 96.  This time, the crew gave the truck four tires, fuel, an air pressure and trackbar adjustments.  However, the right rear lug nuts were left loose again, so Benson had to return to pit road to have them tightened.  He again lost valuable track position and restarted 23rd on lap 101.

Benson had his hands full as he tried to get to the front with just a handful of laps remaining in the race.  He felt as if something was either loose or broken on his Tundra, but he was forced to remain on the track under a long green flag run that lasted until the end of the race.  Benson finished 14th.

Benson stands only 10 points out of fifth place in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Championship standings.  He will try to gain more ground in two weeks, when the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series teams head to O’Reilly Motorsports Park in Indianapolis.  The race will be televised on SPEED Friday, July 27.

• This week’s race truck for Kentucky Speedway is Chassis No. 23-73.  This is the same truck Benson ran earlier in the year at California, Atlanta, Kansas, Texas and Michigan.  With the highest finish (fourth) being at Kansas.

• Kentucky Stat… Racing only twice at the speedway in years past, Benson has managed to bring home one top-five finish and two top-10 finishes.  He has an average finishing position of 6.5 at the 1.5 mile speedway.

• On Board… Benson’s truck will once again adorn the red and black colors of TCUV during this weekend’s race.

• Moving Up… Last week Benson took home a seventh place finish in Memphis, which moved him up into the sixth position in the NCTS point standings.

• Bill Davis Racing… had a very solid weekend two weeks ago in Memphis with all three of the BDR trucks finishing in the top-10 for the second time this year.  With Skinner finishing fourth, Mathews finishing sixth and Benson finishing seventh.

• Listen and watch … The Built Ford Tough 225 presented by the Greater Cincinnati Ford Dealers is scheduled to start at 7:30 p.m. ET Saturday, July 14.  It will broadcast on the Speed Channel (TV), MRN (radio) and Sirius Satellite Radio (Ch. 128).

Johnny Benson on racing at Kentucky Speedway:

“Kentucky has been pretty good to me in the years past.  I like running there.  Turns three and four are kind of tricky, but if you can manage to get into three well and off of four properly you can gain ground fast on the track.”