BENSON ELATED WITH FAST CLIMB INTO TOP 10

Johnny Benson’s championship aspirations didn’t begin very well.  But six races later, Benson and his Yellow Transportation teammates are all smiles as they now feel they are in position to be a major player in the battle for the 2004 NASCAR Busch Series title.
 

“We’ve come a long way in really a short time,” says Benson, the 1995 Busch Series champion.   “From 41^st to tenth in six races is impressive.  That shows how good the Yellow team is, and how well we have run.”

           
Benson, who joined Phoenix Racing in January, began the year on a dismal note by getting involved in an early-race accident at Daytona International Speedway.  As a result, he finished 41^st.

           
Now as the Busch Series gets ready for its second restrictor plate race of the year, the Aarons’s 312 at Talladega Superspeedway on April 24, Benson stands tenth in the race for the 2004 championship.

          
 “I’m really happy we have gotten into the top 10 this quick after what happened at Daytona,” says Benson.  “But we could be a lot closer to the top than we are.  We lost four or five spots at Nashville at the end of the race and at Bristol, we lost 10 spots.  That is a lot of valuable points that we’ve lost right at the end of a couple of races.”

           
Benson was running third at Nashville with two laps to go when the top four cars began battling with the result being an accident that allowed Michael Waltrip to vault into victory lane.  Benson ended up seventh.

           
At Bristol, Benson was again running third with two laps remaining when the Yellow Transportation Dodge was clipped by the Dodge of David Stremme.  This accident dropped Benson all the way to 13^th.

           
“So we could be a lot better off,” Benson points out.  “But the important thing is how well we are running.   We have been right there (in position to win a race).   And if we keep running like we have, Team Yellow can keep climbing up the points ladder.”

           
Benson trails Busch Series point leader Waltrip by 204 points entering the Talladega race.  If Benson had finished third at both Nashville and Bristol, he would be 65 points closer to the top spot.

           
With the second of the three restrictor-plate races next on the Busch Series schedule, Benson and crew chief Jon Wolfe know they can’t afford another Daytona disaster if they are to continue their march up the standings.

           
“We didn’t think we were as good as we needed to be at Daytona,” said Wolfe.  “So when we rebuilt the car we had at Daytona, we changed the body around a little bit, trying to make it better.

           
 “With the amount of templates NASCAR has now, you can’t make major changes to the body.  There is only so much you can do.  But we felt our body wasn’t as good aero (aerodynamics) wise as we needed to be.

           
 “Our speedway program was pretty good last year,” adds Wolfe.  “But when we got to Daytona this year, we realized we were a little behind the top guys.  It is getting harder and harder for a team like ours to be competitive at those places.   With us not getting a lot of support from Dodge and being a single-car team, it is hard to compete with teams like DEI (Dale Earnhardt Inc.), who are spending a lot of time in the wind tunnel.”

           
Since Talladega was closed for testing because the track was putting up the new safer barriers, the Yellow Transportation team was unable to fully assess the changes they made to the car they will run in the 312-mile event.  Yet Wolfe still feels “confident we will be better than we were at Daytona.”

           
Benson agrees as he says, “our goal is to qualify in the top 10, stay up front all day, stay out of trouble and see how the cards shuffle out at the end.  “Three-wide racing is almost the norm at Talladega,” adds Benson.  “So it is not easy to get in the spot you want.  Another drawback to Talladega is that handling usually doesn’t become an issue like it does at Daytona.  So it is harder to get the cars separated.  All of that makes it pretty tough to get yourself in position (to go for the win).
 

“But you just have to approach the race in an optimistic mood and hope for the best.  A top-10 would keep us in the hunt (for the championship).   If we can do that, it will be a good day.”