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BENSON LOOKING FORWARD TO
FIRST BUSCH START AT CALIFORNIA
Johnny Benson hopes his first
NASCAR Busch Series start at California Speedway goes as
well as his first NASCAR Winston West race at the two-mile
track.
“I was fortunate enough
to win a Winston West race there in my first and only try
so it would be pretty neat to do the same thing in my
first Busch Series race there,” says Benson. The
1-800-PitShop.com 300 is scheduled to start a few minutes
past 4 p.m. (EDT) on Saturday, and the race will be
televised live by FOX.
“I really like the race
track,” adds the driver of the Yellow Transportation
Dodge. “It doesn’t have as much banking as Michigan, but
it widens out just as Michigan does once you get a few
laps into the race."
“You usually have two and
sometimes three-groove racing which is a dream for a race
car driver. You want options when you come up on
somebody. And at California, you have that. That’s why I
really look forward to running out there.”
The Yellow team plans to take
the same car as it ran at Texas, and that too causes a
smile to flash across Benson’s face. “That car really ran
well at Texas (as he finished fourth despite starting 39th
after encountering mechanical problems during
qualifying),” says Benson. “And we feel it will run well
at California. I feel we are going to have a good
weekend."
“Normally, you see long
green flag racing at California,” adds Benson, who has
competed in seven Cup events at the track. “And that
means it can turn into a fuel mileage race sometimes.
But the key to running well at California is to have the
right body on the car and obviously, you need great
horsepower. Ernie Elliott has been doing a tremendous job
for the Yellow team this year. I’ve been real happy with
our engines.”
Benson knows Team Yellow needs
a good run at California to get back in the hunt for the
2004 Busch Series championship. “We took a real hit (to
his chances of winning a second title) at Talladega,” says
Benson, the 1995 champion. “It was just a typical
Talladega weekend for me.”
With four top-10 finishes in
six races, Benson entered the Talladega event in tenth
place in Busch Series point standings. But he was unable
to escape the multi-car accident that every driver fears
at the high-speed facility. As a result, he finished 36th
to drop out of the top ten and fall 296 points back of
leader Michael Waltrip.
“Luckily, there are still a
lot of races left (25), so the Yellow team has plenty of
time to catch up,” says Benson. “We just need another
top-10 or better at California to get back on track.”
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