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TEAM YELLOW
FINISHES 9TH IN
GOODY'S HEADACHE POWDER 200
Rockingham, NC (February
21, 2004)
Overcoming adversity was the name of the game for Johnny
Benson and Team Yellow as they finished ninth in
Saturday's Goody's Headache Powder 200 at North Carolina
Speedway.
The weekend began on a very
good note as Benson won the pole position in the Yellow
Transportation Dodge. It was the first for Benson on the
NASCAR Busch Series.
However, NASCAR ruled the
right front coil spring on the car did not meet its
specifications. The sanctioning body said the spring was
"determined to be 4 ¼ coils instead of the required 4 ½
coils."
On the morning of the race,
NASCAR informed crew chief Jon Wolfe that Benson would
have to start at the rear of the 43-car field because of
the infraction.
Johnny and Jon Wolfe along with
a #1 crew member on pit road
prior to qualifying
Benson still thought the team
had a "good chance" of winning its third straight race at
the track. "It will be difficult coming from the back, but
we have a very good race car," said Benson after being
told he was going to have start last. And he backed that
statement up by advancing all the way to 15th by the time
of the first yellow flag on lap 56. However, shortly after
the green flag was waving again, Benson suffered a flat
left rear tire. As he slowed to keep the car under
control, Benson was hit by Regan Smith. The mishap brought
out another caution flag allowing Benson to pit without
losing a lap.
The Yellow Transportation crew did a great job repairing
the damage to the left rear corner of the car and keeping
Benson in contention for a top finish.
However, the damage the car
sustained affected its aerodynamics, and it simply didn't
run as well afterwards. "We ran as fast as the leaders
while coming up through the field before that first yellow
flag," said Benson. "But the car really pushed after we
had that tire problem. Jon and the Yellow Transportation
team did a great job of making the right changes to try
and get the car to where it was early in the race. But we
just never were able to use the gas pedal like I wanted.
The car was pushing too bad to use the gas pedal like you
need to run well at this track.
"So given all that we had to
overcome, I am pretty satisfied with a top-ten finish,"
added Benson. "The team's decision to pit early (with 54
laps to go) was really a smart one. It
allowed us to make up a lot of lost ground. And
then when that last yellow flag came out (with 32 laps to
go), it put a lot of cars a lap down. But because we had
pitted early, we were able to run down and pass the leader
(Kevin Harvick) just before the yellow came out. And that
allowed us to finish in the ninth spot."
Benson admitted the final
result wasn't what he had hoped after being the fastest
car on Friday during qualifying. Yet he felt "the Yellow
Transportation team showed what a good one it is by
overcoming a lot of things today. If we want to win the
championship, we need to turn days like this into top-10
finishes and we were able to do that."
The next race for the Yellow
Transportation team is the Sam's Town 300 at Las Vegas
Motor Speedway on March 6.
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