Kyle Busch won the battle of Bristol on Wednesday night, but Johnny Benson took one more step towards winning the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series war for 2008.

The 23-year-old Busch dominated the proceedings in the O'Reilly 200 Presented by Camping World RV Sales, leading 145 of 203 laps, as he put Billy Ballew's Miccosukee Resorts Toyota Tundra into victory lane for the third time this season. And while Benson failed in his quest to become the first driver to win four consecutive NCTS races, his fourth-place finish allowed him to open a little breathing room over Ron Hornaday Jr. and the rest of the field chasing the 2008 series championship.

There's not much new that can be said about Busch, who now has 17 victories in NASCAR's top three divisions, a surreal performance people will be talking about decades from now. On Wednesday night at the 0.533-mile high-banked Bristol track, he took the lead on Lap 71 and never again trailed. "This is definitely a great race team," said Busch.  "It's a lot of fun with Billy Ballew (owner), Richie (Wauters, crew chief) and all these guys.  We just had a great race tonight. This thing was pretty good when we unloaded it. Same stuff as last year. We just kind of fine-tuned on it a little bit."

Of course, as good as Busch is, he's a part-timer in the Truck Series. Benson, on the other hand, is racing for his first series championship and so the race had larger implications for him. Benson's fourth-place finish in the No. 23 Exide Batteries Toyota, coupled with the 24th that Hornaday scored in his Camping World Chevrolet Silverado and Matt Crafton's 21st-place run in the Menard's Chevy, widened the points gap substantially. With 16 of 25 NCTS races in the books for 2008, Benson leads Hornaday by 119 points and Crafton by 156. Then it's Todd Bodine (-239), Mike Skinner (-254) and Rick Crawford (-261).

And that left Benson happy, if not exactly satisfied with his fourth-place finish. "Well, it was okay," said Benson of his race. "Trip Bruce (crew chief) and the guys — week in and week out  — do a great job on this Exide Tundra.  We're pretty excited about how the night ended.  We were having tire problems like everybody out there.  We had to pit.  We had to do the safe thing knowing that we could drive up there.  We just didn't have enough — we just didn't have enough green stuff and the yellows kind of caught us in some bad spots.  I'm proud of the guys. They did a great job."

Asked if intended to be more conservative now that he has a little bit of a points lead, Benson said, "No, not at all. I think we have to win more races to win the championship. We're not going to change anything we've been doing."

So now it's a week off for the truckers, and then on to Gateway International Raceway for the Sept. 6 Camping World 200, a race Benson won this year. And while Benson's far from a lock for the title, with each passing week it's looking more and more like the title battle is going to be a two-man affair between Benson and Hornaday.

Tom Jensen is the Senior NASCAR Editor for SPEEDtv.com, the former Executive Editor of NASCAR Scene and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com.  He is the author of "Cheating: The Bad Things Good NASCAR Nextel Cup Racers Do In Pursuit of SPEED," and has appeared on television and radio shows to discuss NASCAR racing. Jensen is the President of the National Motorsports Press Association.  Jensen is the 1997 National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year and has won numerous national and state awards for news reporting, columns and feature writing.