Miami heat: Johnny Benson wins Truck championship in thrilling finish

By Bob Pockrass - Associate Editor

Friday, November 14, 2008

Bill Davis Racing's Johnny Benson celebrates his Craftsman Truck Series championship at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

David Griffin
NASCAR Scene

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HOMESTEAD, Fla. – Johnny Benson capped a thrilling 2008 Craftsman Truck Series season Friday night by capturing the season title by seven points over Ron Hornaday.

Benson used pit strategy to finish seventh in the season-ending Ford 200, one spot ahead of Hornaday, who ran better than Benson for most of the night at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

"It’s really special," Benson said. "I can’t put words into it. … All these guys behind me that work on this thing are great friends. It’s unbelievable. It will sink in at about 2 or 3 o’clock tonight. We worked very hard to make this happen."

Hornaday relinquished third place to pit with nine laps remaining while Benson, who was running eighth, stayed on the track. Benson restarted sixth, while Hornaday took four tires and came out 13th. Benson ran about the final 90 laps on the same left-side tires, using pit strategy earlier in the race to take the lead and gain five bonus points.

“I never second guess [crew chief] Trip Bruce,” Benson said. “He knows what he’s doing. He can see the full picture of what is going on, and I can’t. … If those guys didn’t come in, I thought about coming in and putting tires on, but the minute they came in, I wasn’t quite getting an answer [on the radio], and I stayed out.”

The green flag came out with five laps remaining, and then another caution came out with a little more than two laps to go, creating a green-white-checkered finish with Benson restarting in sixth and Hornaday ninth.

Hornaday could see Benson’s bumper as the checkered flag fell, but he was about a half-second behind him. To win the title, Hornaday would have had to beat Benson to the finish.

It marked the first Truck title for Benson, the 1995 winner of the Busch Series championship, as well as the first title for Bill Davis Racing. BDR also won the owners title.

“[Hornaday] is what makes this so meaningful because he’s a hell of a racer,” Benson said about Hornaday, who congratulated Benson in victory lane. “I’ve got to really thank Bill and Gail Davis. This is really for them. … This is awesome.”

Hornaday and his Kevin Harvick Inc. team were denied back-to-back titles.

"It was a good race. Johnny and I raced hard. It was a good call by Trip Bruce," Hornaday said. "We just didn't have track position at the end."

Hornaday was frustrated with microphone troubles that resulted in his crew not hearing him and telling them he wanted to stay out.

“I’m not going to second guess [crew chief] Rick Ren,” Hornaday said. “If we came back and won the race, it would have been the call of the century. We lost it.”

Hornaday was also a little frustrated at the Toyotas working together to block him and said he will remember that Kyle Busch “drove me like a dog.”

“They definitely worked as teammates with Kyle when he raced me when Johnny was up in the lead and then Scott [Speed] kept me in the mirror just to make sure he slowed me up,” Hornaday said. “The green was out and he just waited a long time to go.

“I don’t know what you do in situations like that. It gave Johnny just enough for two or three trucks and maybe it would have helped coming up off the corner, but, heck, you don’t know. I deserved it. After [wrecking on the opening laps] last week, and giving away all those points away last week, we could have came in here with a cushion and we didn’t. It’s racing.”

The race was won by Germain Racing’s Todd Bodine.

Roush Fenway Racing’s Colin Braun was crowned as the series’ top rookie.

Joining Benson and Hornaday at the postseason awards banquet Monday will be the rest of the top 10: Germain Racing's Todd Bodine (104 points behind Benson), Roush Fenway Racing's Erik Darnell (minus-313), ThorSport Racing's Matt Crafton (-333), BDR's Mike Skinner (-362), Circle Bar Racing's Rick Crawford (-410), Bobby Hamilton Racing-Virginia's Dennis Setzer (-528), Wyler Racing's Jack Sprague (-600) and HT Motorsports' Terry Cook (-653).