NASCAR WCUP: Benson Lucky And Good At Talladega
17 April 2000
Posted By Terry CallahanMotorsports Editor, The Auto Channel
TALLADEGA: To do well at Talladega Superspeedway you have to have two things going for you. Not only should you be lucky, but also you have to bring a pretty fast race car.
#10 Lycos Pontiac driver Johnny Benson had both on Sunday as he survived one of the wildest races in the history of NASCAR Winston Cup racing to walk out of the 2.66-mile highbanked tri-oval with a very respectable 13th-place finish.
"Man, that was something," said Benson as he cooled off after the 188-lap race and discussed restrictor plate racing. "I'm not too fond of the them. But as a fan, it couldn't have gotten any more exciting, I guess. I didn't like it where I was. But in the same token, they do this stuff for the fans to have a good race. I guess they saw one, but I don't know. I couldn't see it from where I was. All I know is my spotter Vic (Maguire) earned his pay all afternoon."
Benson began the 500-mile race in 13th place and stayed there much of the early going. But the action on the track was fast, furious, and especially frightening as most of the 43-car field scrambled around tightly bunched at almost 200 mph.
"Did I have any close calls? "I quit counting at about 140. How many laps was the race? That was probably the number. No, actually, probably five or six short of how many laps the race was."
Benson said in some respects Sunday was like last week's short track race in Martinsville.
"There were a couple guys that thought it was Martinsville, and they would run you on the apron of all places. I couldn't believe it. They were only two-wide, or even three-wide. There is enough (room) to run four. And they're hitting them in the side, trying to run them on the apron. I've never seen anything like it. But they know that it slows the car down and they are doing it to keep that guys slowed down. But I'm actually surprised there weren't more wrecks than there were."
The climactic moment of the race came on lap 138 when Robby Gordon and Scott Pruett tangled in the tri-oval triggering about a 20-car pileup on the main stretch. Benson and Dale Earnhardt collided but managed to avoid spinning or hitting the wall and kept going.
"That's the part where we got lucky today," Benson said. "As tightly as we were all bunched together we could have easily been caught up in all that mess."
Benson escaped Talladega's wrath and went on to race with the leaders as well as what was left of the field. He climbed into the top ten and managed to survive the closing laps scramble that saw Jeff Gordon claim his first victory of the 2000 season.
While Gordon celebrated, Benson reflected on his two restrictor plate performances of the season with his Tyler Jet Motorsports team. Performances that included a 12th at Daytona and Sunday's 13th at Talladega.
"We aren't quite there yet in terms of winning one of these plate races, but we haven't been too bad either for a team running its first two races."
Benson and his James Ince-led team return to action in two weeks running the Winston West race as well as the Winston Cup race in Fontana, Calif.
Text provided by Drew Brown
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