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| TOYOTA NOTES: O'Reilly 200 at Bristol Motor Speedway
08-22-2007 | TruckSeries.com Report
Johnny Benson scored his second victory of the season in Wednesday night's O'Reilly 200 at Bristol Motor Speedway in the No. 23 Exide Batteries Tundra. Benson led twice for 84 laps to win his first race since Milwaukee (June 22) earlier this year. Tundra drivers Mike Skinner (fourth) and Jack Sprague (eighth) also finished in the top-10. Other Tundra drivers in the field included David Green (16th), AJ Allmendinger (21st), Todd Bodine (24th), Ted Musgrave (27th), Ryan Mathews (31st) and Terry Cook (32nd). Tundras have won eight races this season. In addition to Benson's victories at Milwaukee and Bristol, Skinner (California, Atlanta, Martinsville and Kentucky), Sprague (Daytona) and Bodine (Texas) have all registered wins this year. Benson joins Skinner (2005) as the second Tundra driver to win a NCTS race at Bristol Motor Speedway. The NCTS race at Bristol was the 91st race for Toyota in the Craftsman Truck Series since the beginning of the 2004 season. Tundras have won 33 races since the beginning of the 2004 Craftsman Truck Series season. Drivers who have registered wins driving Tundras include Bodine (11), Skinner (7), Benson (7), Sprague (3), Travis Kvapil (2), David Reutimann (1), David Starr (1) and Brandon Whitt (1). Johnny Benson, No. 23 Exide Batteries Toyota Tundra, Bill Davis Racing - Finished: 1st Why did you decide to stay out when everybody came in to pit? "In practice, the tires didn't really wear too badly, but they fell off and we knew that. I knew we weren't going to come in on that early pit stop, but I didn't expect the field to come in. The guys just made a great call. We talked about coming in on lap 40, but I couldn't. I wasn't sure what the truck was going to do and I wanted to get some more laps on it. I wanted to run about 100 laps on the tires instead of 160. I didn't want to pass the whole field though, but it worked out." Would you have had anything for Travis Kvapil or Kyle Busch at the end? "I thought we had a good shot getting to the front even without the 51 (Kyle Busch) and 6 (Travis Kvapil) getting together. I was surprised that he tried to go by on the bottom. He lost the back of it a little bit. He tried to save it, but had to use the 6 to do it, and they both spun. I thought; 'Wow, that just made life a little bit easier for us.'" How was the new racing surface at Bristol? "Unbelievable. It is way, way cool. Before, the old track would take your breath away to run on the bottom and you really had to knock people out of the way to get by them. You didn't have to do any of that tonight. It was just a pleasure to race. You could race the top or the bottom. They did one heck of a job on this track. This place is 10 times better. This is just an awesome, awesome race track. Everybody at Bristol Motor Speedway should be real proud of what they did here. They made it two-groove racing, and it hasn't been that way the last couple of years. You can actually race people without having to knock them out of the way. This place is awesome." Mike Skinner, No. 5 Toyota Tundra, Bill Davis Racing - Finished: 4th How do you like the track? "The race track is awesome. It's Bristol. It's always going to be Bristol. It has an upper grove -- believe it or not. I ran high for awhile and then ran low for awhile. I'd get high and run hard for a little bit and then go to the bottom to pick up some speed taking the short way around. Then, I'd get the right front tire hot. I'd have to go up top and cool that Does it bother you not to lead a lap? (Skinner had led laps in 19 consecutive NCTS races) "Heck yeah." Jack Sprague, No. 60 Con-way Freight Toyota Tundra, Wyler Racing - Finished: 8th
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