Benson Overcomes Obstacles In Sixth-Place Finish At Michigan.

It would be difficult to list all the obstacles Johnny Benson and his Valvoline
Racing teammates overcame Sunday afternoon at Michigan Speedway in route to a wild sixth-place finish – the best of their season.

To begin with Benson, Michigan’s only active NASCAR Winston Cup driver, was racing with one broken and two cracked ribs that forced him to sit out almost a
month before his return to driving last weekend.

But the bad luck had just begun when the green flag dropped in front of 135,000
fans and a national television. It seemed all the problems that could befall an
injured driver and team whose luck has been less than stellar this season
seemed to rear up during the 400-mile race.

But none of those problems could dampen the Grand Rapids, Mich. native’s
homecoming.

“I don’t know what to say about today,” said Benson soon after he climbed from
the Valvoline Pontiac. “They kept telling me not to give up even when things
went bad. I didn’t and they were right. It kind of worked out in the end. But,
let me tell you, that was one awesome car they gave me today.”

The first obstacle Benson overcame was his 30th starting spot on the two-mile,
D-shaped oval that often makes passing difficult. A front row qualifying run on
Friday slipped away in the third turn when the Valvoline Pontiac slid high
probably because of jet fuel left by the jet dryer that was cleaning up an
earlier qualifying accident

But the 30th starting position Sunday didn’t deter Benson who showed from the
start that he was as fast as anyone. He climbed from 30th to 12th in just 43
laps. But on that lap Benson reported the engine temperatures were higher than normal because a plastic bag appeared to obstruct the front grill.

Benson headed to the pits a few laps earlier than he planned so the crew could
take care of the problem. But the 13.7-second pit stop for fuel, tires and bag
removal coupled with more laps on the fresh rubber jumped Benson all the way to fifth once the leaders made their stops several laps later.

He maintained his pace but couldn’t avoid more trouble.

“I think this thing is trying to break a valve spring,” Benson radioed the crew. But Crew Chief James Ince didn’t change any strategy and ordered his driver to “keep racing until it breaks.”

Because he pitted early during the first round of green flag stops, Benson
needed to pit a bit earlier on the second round stops so he gave up sixth-place
and came in on lap 89 for fuel and tires. A 13.9 second pit stop guaranteed he
would be right back on the lead lap once the leaders made their way to pit
road.

Only a yellow before the leaders pitted would spell doom.

And it did.

With leader Dale Jarrett expected to make his pit stop on the next lap, John
Andretti bounced off the turn two wall on lap 97 bringing out the yellow and
dropping Benson down a lap to the leaders.

“I hated that,” Benson laughed. “I was like ‘this can’t be happening to us
again.’ That seems to happen whenever we have had to come in early this year. That’s frustrating.”

But neither the team nor the driver gave up.

Benson lined up near the front of the field and when the race restarted Benson
pulled away from the leaders. When a debris caution fell on lap 115 he regained the lost lap amid a celebration in his pit box.

He now sat 14th – the last car on the lead lap.

Once the race restarted Benson took the next 20 laps to move up to 11th and
during a caution period pit stop he came in for fuel and tires and returned to
the track in ninth place. But Ince called Benson back to the pits the next lap
to make sure all the lug nuts were secured.

He fell back to 14th again.

“We probably didn’t need to do that but I’d rather be safe than sorry on those
kinds of things,” Ince said over the radio.

The race resumed with 60 laps to go and Benson began another charge to the
front. He moved to 10th when all the lead lap cars began making quick pits
stops with less than 20 laps to go for a splash of fuel to make sure they could
make it to the end.

With that stop completed it appeared Benson would finish out the final few laps
and come out of the race in front of the homefolks with about a 10th place
finish.

But then the real fun began.

Elliott Sadler spun with five laps to go and NASCAR stopped the race for
several minutes. When the race restarted Benson and a few others came down pit road for four new tires again falling back to about 11th but setting up what
would be a wild shootout.

“I only had three guys behind me and we knew they were coming in,” said Benson. “It was just a matter of how many people in front of us were going to come in. I was hoping none of them, but a couple of them came in.”

When the green flag flew Benson and the pack swarmed all over the track racing to the front. Benson and the other drivers came by the start/finish line three and four abreast while other cars bounced off each other.

Amid the chaos it was apparent Ince’s decision to pit was the right strategy as
Benson passed several cars and when the checkered flag finally fell he came
across the finish line in sixth just inches behind Jeff Gordon in a battle for
fifth.

Benson said the shootout was exciting from where he sat.

“The fans had to have seen a great race there at the end,” Benson said. “It was
pretty cool. We just kind of had to do what we had to do.”

Ince and Benson both agreed with a little luck they could have replaced Matt
Kennseth in Victory Lane. But for now a sixth is pretty good medicine for a
team that has known all year it is better that some of the results have shown.

“It’s been one of those deals where our performance has been there but we’ve
looked terrible. But, we’re still a top 10 race team,” said Ince. “Johnny
Benson can still drive the heck out of a race car and I still think I know how
to work on them so this race team is strong. We needed today pretty bad.”

Results

1 Matt Kenseth
2 Dale Jarrett
3 Ryan Newman *
4 Michael Waltrip
5 Jeff Gordon
6 Johnny Benson
7 Rusty Wallace
8 Ricky Rudd
9 Mark Martin
10 Kurt Busch
11 Bill Elliott
12 Kyle Petty
13 Dave Blaney
14 Jimmie Johnson *
15 Ricky Craven
16 Tony Stewart
17 Hut Stricklin
18 Jeff Green
19 Geoffrey Bodine
20 Jeff Burton
21 Sterling Marlin
22 Dale Earnhardt Jr.
23 John Andretti
24 Bobby Labonte
25 Ken Schrader
26 Elliott Sadler
27 Kevin Harvick
28 Jimmy Spencer
29 Joe Nemechek
30 Mike Skinner
31 Terry Labonte
32 Steve Park
33 Robby Gordon
34 Brett Bodine
35 Stacy Compton
36 Jeremy Mayfield
37 Bobby Hamilton
38 Derrike Cope
39 Casey Atwood
40 Steve Grissom
41 Jason Small
42 Ward Burton
43 Gary Bradberry


* Denotes Rookie