NASCAR veteran, Johnny Benson, held off Ron Hornaday in a two-lap shootout for the checkers to win the Power Stroke Diesel 200 on Friday night at O’Reilly Raceway Park. Hornaday took the lead from polesitter Bobby East back on lap 5 and went onto lead a race high 153 laps before surrendering the lead to the charging Benson on lap 162.

There were a record-tying 11 cautions during the event, the last of which came on lap 195 when Benson’s Bill Davis Racing teammate, Michael Annett, spun while trying to race Rick Crawford for position inside the top-five. The accident setup a restart on lap 198 of the 200 lap race, with Hornaday still running in second. Hornaday attempted a final charge, but he slipped high up on the track, and Benson pulled away for the victory. Hornaday went onto finish 2nd, followed by Erik Darnell, Matt Crafton, and Shelby Howard completing the top-five.

Other Notables:
Kyle Busch finished 8th in the race after stirring up a bit of controversy earlier in the evening, sending Chad McCumbee into the wall back on lap 136 as the two raced for position. Mike Skinner rounded out the top-ten in 10th place. Rick Crawford finished 12th. Hornaday’s Kevin Harvick Inc. teammate, Jack Sprague, was 17th.

Johnny Benson’s victory now opens up a 15 point lead over Hornaday in the points standings. Hornaday jumped past Matt Crafton to take the 2nd spot in the standings as Crafton drops down to 3rd. There were no other changes through the top-six in points. For Benson, the win gave him his second in a row, and his third in the past four weeks.

Complete Power Stroke 200 Results

Craftsman Truck Series Standings (from nascar.com):

Image details: Built Ford Tough 225 served by picapp.com

Johnny Benson won his second race of the season and took the points lead for the first time in 2008 after making a 4-wide pass with just 32 laps remaining in the Built Ford Tough 225 Saturday at Kentucky Speedway. As the field restarted on lap 119, Benson was third in line behind Bill Davis Racing teammate, Michael Annett, and Dennis Setzer, and the lapped truck of Chad Chaffin was on the inside. Benson and Setzer both attempted the pass on Michael Annett at the same time, and Chaffin moved to the bottom of the track as well in an effort to make the pass and get his lap back. In the end, though, it was Benson getting the spot and cruising through the final 32 circuits to pickup the win.

Annett finished second - 0.475 seconds behind Benson - in just his third Craftsman Truck Series start. Matt Crafton finished third, with Setzer in fourth, and David Starr rounded out the top-five finishers. Kyle Busch failed in his bid to get his 15th overall win of the season, as he finished sixth. Mike Skinner, Terry Cook, Marc Mitchell, and Ron Hornaday finished 7th through 10th.

Making his debut for the newly formed Moss Motorsports, Willie Allen started 20th and finished 15th. Jack Sprague’s tough luck this season continued with a 22nd place run after starting 5th. Erik Darnell’s no. 99 Roush-Fenway Ford was caught up in an earlier accident and finished a disappointing 29th. And, in her third Truck Series start, Chrissy Wallace made it through just 50 laps before finding an accident of her own, and she finished 33rd.

Johnny Benson climbed up three spots in the standings to take a 1 point lead over second place, Matt Crafton. Ron Hornaday’s top-ten effort wasn’t enough, as he dropped two spots down to third, where he sits just five points out of first. Rick Crawford and Mike Skinner each moved up a spot to fourth and fifth, respectively.

Complete Ford 225 Results.

Craftsman Truck Series Standings:

David Gilliland almost got it done on Sunday at Sonoma, and we’ve seen a few impressive runs from unlikely candidates earlier in the year. But, following up on a 2007 that brought us a handful of first-time winners in the Cup Series, I find it surprising that we’ve yet to have even one this season. So, it got me to thinking, that’s led us to this week’s “List of the Week”, in which I will rank the five likeliest candidates currently driving in the Cup Series to become the next first-time winner:

5. David Reutimann - Running in his second full-time season for Michael Waltrip Racing, Reutimann still lacks the consistency that it takes to win in this sport. However, he does seem mature and poised enough to strike at any time. His best run to-date was 10th this past May at Lowe’s Motor Speedway.

4. David Gilliland - Gilliland took over the no. 38 car at Yates Racing with high expectations, but those have yet to come to fruition. In his third full season in the Cup Series, David has amassed only 2 top-five’s and 4 top-ten’s, but his unexpected 2nd place run last weekend at Infineon could re-energize this team.

3. AJ Allmendinger - In his two seasons in Cup, he’s failed to qualify for almost as many races as he’s run, and it was beginning to look as though the kid didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell for success at NASCAR’s premier level. But, when Team Red Bull replaced AJ with veteran Mike Skinner inside the no. 84 machine earlier this season, it seems to have paid dividends, and Allmendinger has since responded with some very stout runs, though the finishes haven’t necessarly been indicative of such good runs.

2. Travis Kvapil - He’s had a rough go of it in his quest to become a Cup Series regular, and things haven’t gotten much easier as he and Yates Racing struggle on a weekly basis to attain sponsorship for the no. 28 car. Yet, here they sit with 3 top-ten finishes on the season, and they’re 18th in points. Travis has handled himself well on a variety of tracks, and could be ready to strike at any moment.

1. David Ragan - Most people didn’t expect Ragan to improve as quickly as he has, but he’s been knocking on the doorsteps of the Chase field nearly all season long, and has run surprisingly well at many points during the season. He has 2 top-five’s and 4 top-ten’s on the season, but perhaps most impressive is his 9 top-15’s. His no. 6 team has helped him build a model of consistency week in and week out, and it will eventually payoff with some trips to Victory Lane.

*Credit photo to Newscom.

Image details: Camping World RV Sales 200 served by picapp.com

After losing the race last weekend to Erik Darnell in hearbreaking fashion, Johnny Benson won the Camping World RV Sales 200 at the Milwuakee Mile for the third straight year, also giving he and Bill Davis Racing their first win of the season in the Craftsman Truck Series.

Benson exited the pits with the lead after a caution for light rain on lap 146, and then NASCAR again stopped the race, this time red-flagging it for lightning with only fifty laps remaining. From there, Benson went unchallenged as he raced his way to a 2.5 second win over Matt Crafton, who finished the race in 2nd. Making only his fifth start in the truck series, Landon Cassill finished third, and behind him was last week’s race winner, Erik Darnell.  Todd Bodine finished fifth.

Benson started the race from the pole position and had a 3.3 second lead over Rick Crawford 70 laps into the race when the field began cycling through their green flag pit stops. A caution came out on lap 78 as Benson was pulling out of pit road, and because of the timing, only seven lead lap trucks were scored behind him, with the others being considered the tail end of the lead lap and were placed in front of Benson, including Crawford. Crawford would later regain his track position on a lap 96 caution, and then rallied from 16th to 8th in the closing 56 laps of the race.

Other race notables: Michael Annett made his first start of the season for Bill Davis Racing, and finished 6th; Ron Hornaday dropped another spot in the standings after finishing 7th; Mike Skinner finished 10th; Jack Sprague finished 13th; Making only her 2nd start in the series for Germain Racing, Chrissy Wallace finished 20th.

The victory was the 10th in the series for Johnny Benson, all of which have come in the last 3 seasons, and it opens up a 50 point lead now over 2nd place, Todd Bodine.

Click here for complete Camping World RV Sales race results.

Craftsman Truck Series Standings:

It took NASCAR officials a couple of looks to determine the winner of the Cool City Customs 200 Craftsman Truck Series race at Michigan on Saturday, and at the end, they finally determined that Erik Darnell fended off Johnny Benson in a photo finish. The win is the first of the season for Darnell and the second in his career.

A caution flag with six laps remaining bunched the field up for a final restart. Darnell led the field when the green waived with just three to go, with Scott Speed and Benson following behind in 2nd and 3rd. After an exciting side-by-side battle, Benson was able to make the pass on Speed to take over second, and then began working on Darnell. The two battled side-by-side all the way to the finish line, and it was eventually determined that Darnell edged him by mere inches.

Scott Speed went onto finish 3rd, followed by Todd Bodine and Brendan Gaughan to complete the top-five. Kyle Busch - again pulling triple duty this weekend - finished in 7th, and Mike Skinner finished 8th. The Kevin Harvick Inc. duo had a rough weekend. Jack Sprague finished 8 laps down in 30th place, and Ron Hornaday spun out on the final lap, relegating him to 23rd. Hornaday’s disappointing finish dropped him out of the points lead all the way down to third, with Johnny Benson and Todd Bodine each picking up two spots to move into 1st and 2nd.

Check here for the Cool City Customs 200 complete results.

Craftsman Truck Series Standings:

We all know that Joe Gibbs Racing has established themselves as the powerhouse of the field at this point in time. We know that Roush-Fenway Racing has come a long way in figuring out this new car and that Hendrick Motorsports seems to have lost the edge that they had on everyone else last year. We’ve analyzed potential contractual signings every which way we could, and still found ourselves locked in a guessing game. Been there, done that, but perhaps one of the stories that we haven’t talked nearly enough about are two teams that are holding out hope of getting a driver into contention for the Chase for the Cup for the first time in their team’s history, and another that hasn’t fielded a Chase contender since 2004.

Once considered one of the top organizations in NASCAR, Yates Racing last visited Victory Lane back in the Fall of 2005 when Dale Jarrett drove the no. 88 car to a win at Talladega and the last time they were able to land a driver inside the top-12 in points was with Elliott Sadler back in ‘04. Since those days, the team has gone through a horrendous rebuilding stage and continue to struggle week in and week out to find primary sponsorship of their cars driven by Travis Kvapil and David Gilliland. Both are highly regarded as “underdogs” every Sunday when the series hits the track, and both have failed to land a top-five finish all season long. Still, they’ve continued to push forward, and have managed to turn a few heads along the way, particularly Kvapil. Coming into the season as a driver that nobody really paid much attention to, Travis admittedly got off to a rather slow start. But, something seems to have clicked within this team ever since a solid run at Phoenix turned sour and he finished 22nd. After that race, Kvapil sat 24th in points, but four finishes of 16th or better in the last six races - highlighted with a 6th place run at Talladega and an 8th place run in Darlington - have now moved Travis up six spots in the standings. He’s now 18th in points and trails 12th place, Tony Stewart, by only 150 points.

Red Bull Racing has been the team that quite a few people have been talking about as of late. With Brian Vickers and AJ Allmendinger behind the wheel for the organization, the team managed to qualify for only 40 races in a combined 72 attempts in their inaugural season in 2007. Coming into the season with both cars outside of the top-35 in points and forced to qualify on time, Allmendinger again missed out on the first three events of ‘08 before being replaced temporarily by veteran driver, Mike Skinner. Despite failing to finish inside of the top-25 in any of the five races that Skinner filled in, the move appears to have paid dividends. AJ has been able to take what he’s learned from Skinner and put it to good use on the track, first winning the All-Star Showdown at Lowe’s to make the cut for the All-Star event itself, and then scoring a career best 12th place finish last week at Pocono. Still, the focus of the media on this team has been placed with Brian Vickers, who appears to be on the verge of scoring the second Cup victory of his career. After a disappointing 2007 that brought him only 1 top-five and 5 top-ten’s, Vickers has been impressive on several occassions this year, though it may not always show up in the results column. He’s been strong on all of the superspeedways, but the team really started to turn heads when they established themselves as one of the dominant cars in the Coca Cola 600 before an equipment failure ended their day. Since then he’s bounced back with a 13th place effort at Dover and finished 2nd last week at Pocono. Brian has now moved up to 17th place overall and trails 12th by a mere 112 points.

Rounding out the list of underdogs making a charge towards the Chase is non-other than Petty Enterprises. Despite the fact that this team has more wins than any other organization in the history of the sport and a slieu of championships from when “the King” himself, Richard Petty, drove the car, the company hasn’t celebrated a win since 1999 when John Andretti won at Martinsville, and the closest they’ve come to a bid for the Chase was an 18th place finish in the standings last year from Bobby LaBonte. Now, nobody’s really sure who will drive the no. 45 car next year as Kyle Petty, Chad McCumbee, and Terry LaBonte have all failed to do much with the ride, but Bobby continues to press forward. Though he’s failed to score a top-ten all season long, he does have seven top-15’s and has gone the entire year without a DNF, something that has hindered the team in recent years. Additionally, he’s got six finishes of 18th or better in the last eight races, which started with a 12th place run at Phoenix, and LaBonte now resides in 19th in the standings, trailing his former Gibbs teammate in 12th by 159 points.

As many of the drivers in the top-12 continue to experience their share of misfortunes as they bounce back and forth between the bubble spots, this could be a prime opportunity for one of these teams to capitalize. But, with the recent emergance of guys like David Ragan, the resurgance of Matt Kenseth, and other perrenial Chase hopefuls such as Ryan Newman and Martin Truex Jr. standing between them as well, the guys currently in the top-12 may not be all they’ll have to contend with.

DYN Imposes:
This week, Do You NASCAR also asks its readers …

1. Which driver in these 3 organizations will be the first to score their first / next win?
2. Are consistent top-15 and top-20 runs going to be enough to land a driver in the Chase field?
3. Which of these teams has made the best organizational move(s) in the last 2 years?
4. Will any of these 3 teams get a driver into the 2008 Chase? If so, who?

*Credit photos to Newscom.

For the third consecutive week, the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series crowned a first-time winner, and this time in came in the form of former F1 Series driver, Scott Speed. In only his sixth career start in the Truck Series, Speed drove away from the field after a late restart in the race, and cruised on into Victory Lane to win the AAA Insurance 200 at Dover, topping his best previous finish, which was 8th at Kansas.

Jack Sprague held off his Kevin Harvick Inc. racing teammate, Ron Hornaday, to finish second, while Travis Kvapil finished fourth, and last week’s race winner, Matt Crafton, finished fifth. Kyle Busch had the dominant car all night long, but transmission troubles sidelined him late in the race, and he went onto finish 27th. Todd Bodine came into the race as the series points leader, but a blown tire that sent him hard into the Turn 3 wall on lap 170 relegated him to a 27th place finish, dropping him four spots in the standings. The points lead was handed over to Rick Crawford after putting together a solid 9th place run.

Speed took the lead of the race when he passed Bodine for the position on lap 150, and opened up a lead of more than 3.5 seconds before the lap 170 caution saw that lead disappear. After the restart on lap 179, Speed ran away from the field, leaving Sprague trailing by more than four seconds before he finally slowed it down on the final lap as he made his way towards Winner’s Circle.

Following the race, Speed, who later revealed that he’d had his toenails painted blue prior to the race, stated, “Today we had a good strategy and an awesome truck, and we got everything we could out of it. The learning curve I’ve had has been amazing. Everytime I go out on the track, I feel I come away with a lot of knowledge. I’m just having an awesome time trying to learn this sport.”

Speed’s victory is the first on the season for Bill Davis Racing, whose camp also consists of veteran drivers, Johnny Benson and Mike Skinner.

Craftsman Truck Series Standings (from nascar.com):

NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series rookie, Donny Lia, took home his first checkered flags in the series during the Ohio 250 at Mansfield Motor Park with a last lap bump on David Starr to get the win. The race drew a record 15 caution flags throughout the day, the last of which came from a Brendan Gaughan spin with 11 laps to go. At the time, Lia was running in second behind Starr, but was able to nudge him up the track on the final circuit to make the pass successfully. He then had to hold off Starr and Todd Bodine as they got three-wide going into Turn 3, and eventually picked up the win for TRG Motorsports.

Starr went onto finish second, followed by Bodine in third. Fourth place went to Terry Cook, and Mike Skinner completed the top-five. Skinner had an earlier incident with Ron Hornaday, who came into the race with the points lead. As the two battled for the race lead with Johnny Benson back on lap 49, the they made contact, and Hornaday ended up in the wall with a wrecked truck. He went onto finish 35th, and dropped four spots in the standings. Todd Bodine’s third place run bumped him up two spots into the points lead.

Craftsman Truck Series Standings (from nascar.com):

With all of the controversy that Kyle Busch has managed to cause already this year due to his reckless on-track behavior, I thought it would only be fitting to compile a list of his most shining moments … or, rather, his top-ten wrecks. Enjoy!

10. Busch gets spun by Jeff Burton at the finish line as they race for the win at the Sam’s Town 300 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in 2007.

9. Kyle Busch sets off “the big one” in the 2006 Aaron’s 499 at Talladega.

8. Richmond wasn’t the first time that Kyle Busch has been involved in an accident with Dale Earnhardt Jr. Here they make contact on pit road during the Ford 400 in 2007 at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

7. Kyle is involved in another “big one” at Talladega Superspeedway, this time during the 2007 UAW-Ford 500.

6. Kyle Busch and Mike Skinner get into it at the Craftsman Truck Series’ opening event in 2008, the Camping World 300, at Daytona International Speedway.

5. In the closing laps of the Craftsman Truck Series’ Kroger 250 at Martinsville Speedway, Kyle plows into Johnny Benson as they race for third place.

4. Kyle’s involved in a horrific accident in the 2007 Aaron’s 312 at Talladega Superspeedway, in which his Nationwide car performs several barrel rolls.

3. Kyle Busch was already quickly approaching notoriety status with the NASCAR fans, but here’s the one that pushed him over the top. Watch again, as Kyle battles Dale Earnhardt Jr. for the lead in the closing laps of the 2008 Dan Lowry 400 at Richmond International Raceway.

2. Kyle gets into his older brother, Kurt, while racing him for the lead at the 2007 All-Star Race. Neither of the brothers appeared to take it personally, and Kurt even makes some witty comments following the race to make light of the situation.

1. Saving the best for last … at the 2006 NASCAR Awards Banquet held in New York City, Kyle Busch was giving his “thank you” speech – and, actually called his girlfriend by the wrong name. You’ll love this!

He failed to qualify for the first three races of the season, then Team Red Bull replaced him for with Mike Skinner for the next five events, he wrecked out of the two races after that, and he finished a race for the first time this season by finishing 27th last weekend at Darlington. Yet, following the NASCAR All-Star Showdown, AJ Allmendinger stood in Victory Lane for the first time in his Sprint Cup career, with his eyes now set on competing in the All-Star Race itself.

Allmendinger led all twenty laps in the second and final segment of the Showdown to earn himself a spot in the All-Star Challenge. He finished ahead of Sam Hornish Jr, who also earned a bid in the All-Star competition via his second place finish. Hornish took the transfer spot away from David Ragan on lap 33 of the 40 lap race, and was able to fend him off for the final 7 laps.

Brian Vickers led the race at the end of the first segment after taking the lead away from polesitter, Elliott Sadler, back on lap 1. He then pitted during the competition caution at the end of the segment, while 8 other cars opted to remain on the track, including eventual race winner, AJ Allmendinger.

Kasey Kahne finished the race in fifth, but earned himself a spot in the All-Star Race as well via the fan vote. He finished ahead of Robby Gordon in the voting to earn the honors.