Benson Ends 2001 Season Fast But Unlucky At NHIS
Benson Ends 2001 Season Fast But Unlucky At NHIS #10 Valvoline Pontiac driver Johnny Benson appeared destined for a top-10 and maybe even a top-five finish Friday in the Nascar Winston Cup Series’ season-ending race at New Hampshire International Speedway. But Lady Luck once again turned her back on the Valvoline team although Benson did manage to walk out of the mile oval with a respectable 12th-place finish in the race and 11th place in the final 2001 season standings. “Today was frustrating,” Benson said moment after the race that was run on Friday after the original date was postponed by the Sept. 11 hijacking. “There is no other way to describe it.” What frustrated Benson and his teammates was the timing of a caution flag late in the race just minutes after he and crew chief James Ince elected to come in early for new Goodyear tires. All day teams battled blistering tires and while Benson was blistering his as well they didn’t look as bad as those of other teams. Benson had moved from his starting spot of 10th up as far up as fifth and fell as far back as 13th. The plan was for Benson, who was then running about 8th, to take four tires on lap 256 of the 300-lap race. That was about 25 laps earlier than the cars ahead of him on the track If the race went caution free then Benson would have spent more time on fresher rubber than the leaders and gained enough ground to climb into the top five. The only problem with that strategy is if a caution comes out before the leaders pit then Benson would lose a lap. You can guess what happened. On lap 272 Ricky Craven crashed bringing out the yellow and dropping Benson down a lap ruining what was shaping up to be a fine run on a cold but sunny New Hampshire day. “It seems like every time we short pit this year a yellow comes out,” laughed Benson. “But it was the right call. We had to do it. We just need our luck to turn sometime.” Benson finished the race a lap down in 12th position running just a few car lengths behind race winner Robby Gordon. Benson’s finish enabled him to stay ahead of Mark Martin and finish 11th in the driver points standings. The Valvoline team finished 12th in the car owner standings behind the #1 car driven by Steve Park and Kenny Wallace during the season. “You know, all in all we have had a pretty good season,” Benson said. “We had a lot of mechanical problems and we plan to fix those before the 2002 season. But, we are making progress with this team. We are getting better and better each season.” The Valvoline team will test in January at Daytona before heading to the beach for Speedweeks in February. Additional Benson Quotes Courtesy of Pontiac: JOHNNY BENSON, NO. 10 VALVOLINE PONTIAC GRAND PRIX: (ON YOUR RACE) "It was a long day. The car wasn't bad, but Goodyear had all kinds of problems today and that really put us in a box. We blistered some tires and had to pit, and when we pitted, things just didn't work our way. It was going to work our way, but then of course, the caution came out." (WHAT WAS THE ISSUE WITH THE TIRES?) "I don't know. Everybody was blistering tires. I saw them coming off the car and they were pretty bad. Everybody had the problem. I don't know - I don't think they expected that and it looked like everybody had tire problems." (YOU JUST CLOSED OUT YOUR BEST SEASON EVER...ARE YOU SATISFIED WITH IT?) "No. We didn't reach our goals. We wanted to win a race and we wanted to finish in the top six in points, and we didn't achieve that. But, it wasn't from a lack of hard work. We worked hard all year, but we broke six or seven engines and that really hurt us. We're just going to keep working hard. And, man, am I looking forward to next year. This is a really good group of guys and I'm really looking forward to it." 2001 Point Standings 1 Jeff Gordon 5112 2 Tony Stewart 4763 3 Sterling Marlin 4741 4 Ricky Rudd 4706 5 Dale Jarrett 4612 6 Bobby Labonte 4561 7 Rusty Wallace 4481 8 Dale Earnhardt, Jr 4460 9 Kevin Harvick * 4406 10 Jeff Burton 4394 11 Johnny Benson 4152 12 Mark Martin 4095 13 Matt Kenseth 3982 14 Ward Burton 3846 15 Bill Elliott 3824 16 Jimmy Spencer 3782 17 Jerry Nadeau 3675 18 Bobby Hamilton 3575 19 Ken Schrader 3480 20 Elliott Sadler 3471 21 Ricky Craven 3379 22 Dave Blaney 3303 23 Terry Labonte 3280 24 Michael Waltrip 3159 25 Robert Pressley 3156 26 Casey Atwood * 3132 27 Kurt Busch * 3081 28 Joe Nemechek 2994 29 Todd Bodine 2960 30 Brett Bodine 2948 31 John Andretti 2943 32 Steve Park 2859 33 Stacy Compton 2752 34 Mike Wallace 2693 35 Jeremy Mayfield 2651 36 Kevin Lepage 2461 37 Jason Leffler * 2413 38 Ron Hornaday * 2305 39 Kenny Wallace 2054 40 Mike Skinner 2029 Drew Brown 1335 Torrence Circle Davidson, NC 28036 704-895-3651 H 704-906-7992 C drew_brown@mindspring.com