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Benson 25th
At Watkins Glen
#10 Valvoline Pontiac driver Johnny Benson posted a
respectable 25th-place
finish Sunday on the road course at Watkins Glen
International Raceway.
“I thought we would have ended up a lot better in the race
based on how we did
in Happy on Saturday but you get back in that traffic and
it’s awfully hard to
pass here,” said Benson who started the race in 38th. “There
at the end, James
and our guys had the perfect fuel strategy but there were
just too many yellows
for it to pay off.”
Most of the drama in Sunday’s race centered on fuel
strategy.
The Valvoline team took advantage of early yellows to come
in for tires and gas
and put themselves on their own pit schedule. The plan was
to move to the head of the field whenever the leaders did
stop. The plan worked as Benson climbed as high as 8th on
the scoring pylon.
The race wasn’t without a few scary moments. Midway through
the race Benson reported engine problems and even announced
the engine had broken, but it lived through the 90-lap race.
Near the end of the race the fuel strategy appeared ready to
pay even bigger
dividends. Benson came in for tires and gas and returned to
the track with about 35 laps left in the race.
Although he was at the back of the pack he had a big
advantage over most
others.
“Johnny, we may be the only car that can make it to the
end,” said Crew Chief
James Ince.
The only problem – several late race cautions allowed most
of the field to
stretch their gas mileage to the end of the race and took
away the Valvoline
team’s advantage. Once the yellows came back out, Ince
brought Benson back in the pits for tires hoping that would
make passing just a bit easier.
Benson said track position was key all day long.
“We hit some oil in qualifying and that’s what put us back
in the pack to start
the race. We could never recover from that. But, we will
rebound. We go to
Michigan next week where we have three top six finishes in
three of the last
four races so that might be a good place for us to get back
to the front of the
field.”
Tony Stewart won Sunday’s race and was followed across the
finish line by Ryan Newman and Robby Gordon.
Results
1 Tony Stewart
2 Ryan Newman *
3 Robby Gordon
4 PJ Jones
5 Ricky Rudd
6 Scott Pruett
7 Jeff Burton
8 Todd Bodine
9 Michael Waltrip
10 Mark Martin
11 John Andretti
12 Jeff Green
13 Boris Said
14 Kevin Harvick
15 Jeremy Mayfield
16 Jimmie Johnson *
17 Rusty Wallace
18 Dave Blaney
19 Bobby Hamilton
20 Ward Burton
21 Bill Elliott
22 Jeff Gordon
23 Bobby Labonte
24 Tom Hubert
25 Johnny Benson
26 Jerry Nadeau
27 Casey Atwood
28 Ken Schrader
29 Kyle Petty
30 Sterling Marlin
31 Terry Labonte
32 Brett Bodine
33 Matt Kenseth
34 Ricky Craven
35 Dale Earnhardt Jr.
36 Kenny Wallace
37 Dale Jarrett
38 Joe Nemechek
39 Steve Park
40 Mike Skinner
41 Kurt Busch
42 Joe Varde
43 Elliott Sadler
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