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.