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BENSON ‘EXCITED’ ABOUT REST OF
YEAR FOR TEAM YELLOW
BRISTOL, TN – Johnny Benson
knows the climb to the top of the NASCAR Busch Series
mountain is a long one especially since the first couple
of steps didn’t go too smoothly. Yet he is “excited”
about the rest of the trip.
“I really feel good
about the direction of the Yellow Transportation team,”
says Benson. “I hated we started (the season) off bad
with that wreck at Daytona and then having mechanical
problems at Vegas. But our run at Darlington really has
me excited about the rest of the year. “I believe we
are ready to start our march to the front.”
The next step in the climb back into contention for the
2004 Busch Series championship is Saturday’s Sharpie
Professional 250 at Bristol Motor Speedway. The 250-lap
event will be televised live by FOX with the telecast
starting at 1 p.m.
“I’m a big fan of Bristol,” says Benson, who knows that
not every driver feels the same way. “It’s a track where
I don’t necessarily like to qualify or practice at, but I
love to race there. It’s a very tough race track, but one
you can race on it. The last couple of years it has
been getting tougher and tougher to run side-by-side, but
you are still able to pass. And that is the main thing.
Racing there is a lot of fun.”
Benson knows a lot of his compatriots don’t look on
Bristol as “fun” since its history is filled with
multi-car accidents. “It is one of those tracks that
anything can happen at any time, and you hate to see that
part of it,” says Benson. “But I still feel it is a lot
of fun to race there.”
The driver of the Yellow Transportation Dodge feels “the
reason why the race is so much more fun than practice is
during the race you get a chance to feel out the car, see
what it needs, and see how the tires are doing. You get
to run your segments. That is what makes it fun.
“In practice, you just run a couple of laps and then you
come back in and then go back out and run a couple more.
And it so hard to get a real feel for a place like Bristol
when you do that.”
Benson believes the Yellow team, headed by crew chief Jon
Wolfe, showed at Darlington that “we are adapting to the
new tire pretty quickly. This team had such great
success the last couple of years on the harder tire. But
this new softer tire has forced all the teams to change
their setups in trying to figure out the difference in the
two tires.
“At Rockingham, we qualified well (winning the pole position),” adds
Benson. “But we had to start at the back (because the
right front spring didn’t fit NASCAR’s specifications) and
had to work out way back up to finish ninth. I didn’t
feel that was too bad of a run. At Vegas, we qualified
well, but we struggled a little bit in the race.
“At Darlington, we had as good a car as anybody’s. We had
trouble with the lug nuts on our last pit stop (dropping
from third to 14th). I had to burn the tires
off, but we were able to get back up to finish sixth. And
if the race had been a few laps longer, we would have got
ourselves a top five. Our car was really good on a long
run. That is why I am so excited about the rest of the
year.”
After the wreck at Daytona, Benson and the Yellow team
stood 41st in the point race. After two
top-tens in the next three races, Benson has climbed into
a tie for 21st.
“We still have a long way to go to get into the top ten,”
adds Benson, the 1995 Busch Series champion. “But I feel
the Yellow Transportation team will be a contender for the
championship before the year is over.”
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