Johnny Benson keeps moving, but not forward. That's too
bad, because he's a driver who's not without some
accomplishments and a decent sort besides. He's won
awards, poles, even a race as recently as 2002. He finds
himself now on the fringes of the Nextel Cup experience.
It's not where he seemed to be headed a half-dozen years
ago.
He's been bounced around a little bit. Locals
might remember Benson was TKO'd during a nasty
Busch-circuit wreck at RIR two Mays ago, missed five
starts and stumbled throughout a season salvaged only by
his breakthrough win at Rockingham. He's also bounced
from team to team, four in all, since he landed on the
tour in 1996. Now - as of several days ago - he has no
ride to call his own. It's not the recommended pattern
as career progressions go.
His most recent gig was with Phoenix Racing, a
threadbare operation that's got the wherewithal to make
12 legitimate attempts - one of them last night's Chevy
400 - and otherwise trots backup driver Joe Ruttman onto
the starting grid to turn a couple of laps and park the
No. 09 Dodge. The checks keep coming. Continuity
doesn't.
Until this week, Benson was the team's "serious"
driver - the guy who took the wheel when the goal was
something more than dropping out early with vibration
issues (uh-huh) or faulty brakes (tee-hee). But last
night, the 09 was steered by Bobby Hamilton Jr. Benson,
whose best finish had been 27th in the season-opener at
Daytona, was nowhere to be seen - pink-slipped by car
owner James Finch and set adrift.
It wasn't long ago Benson was on an upwardly mobile
course. He was the Busch Series' top rookie in 1994 and
its champion a year later. He accelerated to Cup
rookie-of-the-year status in 1996. He finished 11th in
the points standings - and a mere one point out of 10th
- in'97. He joined the Roush Racing stable the following
season. All systems were go.
He's had trouble avoiding speed bumps since then.
Only Mark Martin and Jeff Burton were winning races for
Roush during Benson's two seasons of marginal returns
with the operation, and he became odd man out when Matt
Kenseth was deemed ready for full-time Cup duty.
Benson then hooked up with MB2 Motorsports. He
finished 13th and 11th in the standings his first two
years, then faded. Two humdrum seasons ended last fall
when he was sacked and replaced by Scott Riggs, a rookie
who'd built - like Benson before him - a promising
worksheet in Busch cars.
Riggs is 33 - the same age Benson was when he landed
on the Cup circuit. He's closing in on 41 now, his
once-promising career sidetracked. He's with a team
that's impossibly underfunded. His star has waned. He
claims his spirit hasn't.
"I personally don't worry about that," Benson said
during a test session last week at RIR. "Some people do.
I know my stint with Roush wasn't as good as what we
wanted. I came from within one point of 10th in the
standings to not running well with them. Last year
wasn't the year we were expecting to have. We ended up
24th in the points, so they felt they needed to make a
change. I don't know what the future holds. I've just
got to be optimistic and look at it that way. I can't
worry about the past. I can't change it."
There's matter-of-factness in his voice. That's not
stepping out of character. Benson is a no-frills,
son-of-a-racer type from Grand Rapids, Mich., and
part-owner now of the track - Berlin Raceway - where he
became a local hero. He drives souped-up cars for a
living. It doesn't seem to trouble him that he's not in
the fast lane these days.
"I'm going to race till they tell me I can't," he
said. "Whether I run in the Cup Series or the Busch
Series or I run on my own track, I don't care."
The woulda/coulda stuff is behind him. He's not
looking back. But he's not accelerating, either.
