Benson Equals Career-Best At
Martinsville
Finishes Few Feet Behind Winner Kurt Busch
If Johnny Benson were asked to pick a racetrack on the
Nascar Winston Cup
Circuit where he was most likely to equal a career-best,
second-place finish he
probably wouldn’t mention Martinsville Speedway in his top
two or three
choices.
Ok, maybe his first ten choices. Beating and banging on the
short track just
isn’t his style.
But Benson put aside past frustration at Martinsville and
relied on his Crew
Chief James Ince’s love of the flat Virginia short track to
have his best race
of the season. Benson finished second Sunday just a few feet
behind Kurt Busch and few feet from claiming his first
career victory.
“No I don’t like this place, but after today I like it a lot
more than I ever
have,” Benson said during post-race interviews on Sunday.
“Today I had a
fantastic car, perfect pit stops and the best strategy and I
thought we were
going to have a chance to catch Kurt there at the end of the
race, but we fell
a little short. Maybe if we had ten more laps we might be
the ones celebrating
in victory lane and not Kurt.”
Benson started Sunday’s race in 11th and held his own in the
early going. By
the lap 100-mark he had moved to 12th and then used three
consecutive pit stop of under 14 seconds to move all the way
up to seventh by lap 161.
“Our cars seem to like four tire so in the early going we
were doing four tires
every pit stop,” Benson said. “We were pretty good. We spun
the wheels off the
corner but (Crew Chief) James fixed that.”
On lap 205 Benson stayed on pit road while others came in
for tires and he
moved from seventh to third. By lap 298 he waged a furious
battle with Dale
Earnhardt Jr. before claiming second place.
At lap 374 Benson ran down leader Ricky Craven to claim the
top spot.
“Just keep doing what you are doing,” joked Ince. “You keep
it up we can do the
unthinkable and win this race.”
Benson held the lead until lap 389 when Busch drove past
him. For the rest of
the race Benson battled to catch Busch sometimes falling
back as far as third
but with about 50 laps to go he moved to second.
It was now just he and Busch.
“Kurt kind of got away from us then I think he started using
up his tires and I
was able to catch up in some in lap traffic. I think we
bumped there maybe once but both of raced real clean.”
Benson was able to pull up to his rear tires on the final
lap but ran out of
time to make the pass.
“I did everything I knew how to do. Like I said maybe
another ten laps and
things might have been different,” said Benson who scored
his sixth top-ten of
the season and posted his best finish at Martinsville in 14
starts. “We didn’t
get the win but we have a lot to build on. My guys and
Valvoline have stood
behind me this season and I hope this leads to bigger and
better things this
year and next.”
Benson and his teammates return to action Sunday at Atlanta.
Race Results
Fin Driver
1 Kurt Busch
2 Johnny Benson
3 Ricky Rudd
4 Dale Earnhardt Jr.
5 Ward Burton
6 Jimmie Johnson *
7 Ricky Craven
8 Dale Jarrett
9 Rusty Wallace
10 Mark Martin
11 Tony Stewart
12 Bobby Labonte
13 John Andretti
14 Mike Bliss
15 Ryan Newman *
16 Steve Park
17 Jeff Burton
18 Michael Waltrip
19 Matt Kenseth
20 Dave Blaney
21 Casey Atwood
22 Terry Labonte
23 Robby Gordon
24 Jimmy Spencer
25 Bobby Hamilton
26 Ken Schrader
27 Mike Wallace
28 Jeremy Mayfield
29 Ted Musgrave
30 Todd Bodine
31 Kevin Harvick
32 Jeff Green
33 Mike Skinner
34 Elliott Sadler
35 Hermie Sadler
36 Jeff Gordon
37 Kyle Petty
38 Brett Bodine
39 Geoffrey Bodine
40 Steve Grissom
41 Joe Nemechek
42 Bill Elliott
43 Hideo Fukuyama
|
|
Johnny's
Official Facebook
Follow
Us
on Twitter
|
_small.jpg)
