Benson Capitalizes On Late-Race Incident To Snare 2nd Victory This Season

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BRISTOL, Tenn. (Aug. 22) – A late-race incident between Travis Kvapil and Kyle Busch while they were battling for the lead in Wednesday night's O'Reilly 200 at Bristol Motor Speedway, opened the victory door for Johnny Benson for the second time this season in NASCAR's Craftsman Truck Series.

Benson, who pitted for tires on lap 104 while leading, returned to the track in 17th. He then utilized the inside and outside grooves to quickly slice his way through the field and maneuver back into the top five. He was riding in third and closing on the top two trucks when they collided on lap 179 of the 200-lap race.

Kvapil, who had the dominant truck in the race's middle stages, had been reeled in by the hard-charging Busch. When Busch dove to the inside of Kvapil as they entered turn 1, Busch's truck jumped loose and slid into Kvapil's Ford. That sent both of them into a synchronized spin. Benson slipped through unscathed and led the final 20 laps to ring up his seventh career NCTS victory.

“I was confident we could get to the front because we had 40-lap fresher tires,” Benson said when asked about crew chief Trip Bruce’s decision to pit in mid-race. “I knew we had a great truck even before we pitted. We just knew that on the new surface the tires would give up just a little bit.”

Wednesday night’s race was the first NASCAR event at Bristol since the high-banked, concrete track was resurfaced after the March Cup race.

With the event winding down, Benson possessed a front-row seat to the unfolding demise of the top two trucks.

“I think when Travis and Kyle got together it was just hard racing,” Benson said. “If they hit door-to-door, they would have just slid up the track and we would have gone on past and (they would) finish second and third. But they ended up spinning. When that happened, it just made it a little easier.”

Benson held off newlywed Brendan Gaughan, whose second-place finish was his best performance this season. Gaughan made a run at the lead on the final restart with six laps remaining, but he was forced to drive defensively
to maintain the runner-up spot.

“I wanted to win this race bad,” Gaughan said. “I really like Johnny, but if I got to him, I can’t guarantee that he wasn’t going to go around. But he got away from us, and I did all I could to move down and block like heck to keep Mark Martin behind us.”

Martin finished third, with points leader Mike Skinner and Rick Crawford rounding out the top five, respectively.

Ron Hornaday finished sixth, followed by Mike Bliss, Jack Sprague, Cale Gale and Danny O’Quinn Jr. Kvapil ended up 11th and Busch 15th.

In the championship battle, Skinner leads Hornaday by 92 points entering the Sept. 1 event at Gateway International Raceway.
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