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Benson Quotes
From GM JOHNNY
BENSON, NO. 10 VALVOLINE PONTIAC GRAND PRIX:
NOTE: Michigan native Johnny Benson returns to his home
track this weekend for the Sirius Satellite Radio 400 at
Michigan International Speedway. Benson, a native of Grand
Rapids and a second-generation racer, also owns Berlin
Raceway in Marne, one of the country’s premier short-track
venues.
On the track, Benson is coming off two straight top-10 runs,
including his first top-five of the season June 2 at Dover
International Speedway.
WHAT’S THE SECRET TO GETTING AROUND MICHIGAN
COMPETITIVELY?
"It’s the same as it is every week. You have to have good
horsepower, a good body on there. The race is always fun
there because there are two or three grooves. You can start
running three-wide in the corners and I think that’s pretty
neat. Some guys choose to run the bottom, some guys choose
to run the middle and others choose to run the top. As the
race goes, you have to identify where your car works best
and then work on it there. There are areas to pick. At
Pocono and a lot of other race tracks, it’s just one groove,
the bottom. Michigan is that way to start with, because the
bottom is quickest to start with, but it’s not long before
it starts to raise up the track."
DO YOU THINK THE NEW ’03 PONTIAC WILL MAKE A DIFFERENCE
AT MICHIGAN?
"I don’t know. I think the cars are all getting pretty
equal, or at least there’s nobody complaining. They’re all
pretty close. With Pontiac, because we only have five cars,
it’s kind of hard to get on top of the program. We hope it’s
going to be better. We haven’t run there yet with it, but we
are looking forward to it."
BEING A MICHIGAN NATIVE, IS IT NICE TO GO HOME TO RACE?
"To me, all the tracks are the same, but it is neat to go
home. When I do go home, I race at my local track and do
appearances and things like that. That’s the good part of
being home. I like racing at MIS. We’ve always been decent
there, I like the track and that’s because it gives you
options. If you come up on someone, you always have
someplace to go to get around them."
YOU’RE COMING OFF A TOP-FIVE RUN AT DOVER, YOU’VE RUN
WELL IN THE PAST AT POCONO. DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU’VE GOT
MOMENTUM, AND HOW IMPORTANT IS THAT TO YOUR TEAM?
"Having a good finish, obviously, the team likes that.
That’s what you strive for and it pumps them up a little
bit. They haven’t had a good year, it’s been up and down,
but we’ve had some good runs. We’ve had some mechanical
failures and we’ve had some incidents. Obviously, I think
we’re a lot better team than we’ve shown in the points.
Dover was a great race for us and we know we are capable of
doing that. The hard part is trying to make it week ina nd
week out. We’ll make that happen. Obviously, momentum is
something a lot of people try to bank on, but by the same
token, it’s about a lot of hard work and the guys have been
doing that. It’s a matter of being able to put those
together and have good runs. I’m really looking forward to
the race at MIS and the whole rest of the year."
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