Six races ago, Benson had a 119-point lead over the three-time champion Hornaday. In five of the last six NCTS races, including Saturday's E-Z-GO 200 at Atlanta Motor Speedway, Hornaday has earned more points than Benson.

And yet, Benson still leads the points, his margin just 31 points with 22 of 25 NCTS races complete.

Saturday at Atlanta, Hornaday led the most laps and finished second in his VFW Chevrolet Silverado to his Kevin Harvick Inc. teammate Ryan Newman. In the process, Hornaday trimmed his point deficit by 34 points, as Benson finished seventh in his Toyota Certified Used Vehicles Tundra.

Regardless of how this heavyweight title ends three weeks from now in the season-ending Ford 200 at Homestead-Miami Speedway, this race will be looked at as one where the shift in points could have been far more dramatic.

Hornaday was clearly the class of the field, leading 110 of 130 laps in a dominating performance. He even led Lap 129, before Newman passed him on the final circuit to win in his first NCTS start.

Benson, on the other hand, was junk for much of the day. Hornaday was just about to lap Benson, who was running 17th, when the fourth and final caution flag of the race flew for debris on Lap 90. Rather than fall one lap behind and possibly finish somewhere around 20th, Benson salvaged the afternoon on his final set of tires and rallied to pick up 10 positions in the final 35 laps.

Had Hornaday won and Benson finished 17th, Hornaday would be leading Benson by 18 points instead of trailing him by 31. That's the kind of swing championships turn on.

"To run seventh, that was better than we ran all race, for sure," said Benson, who knew luck was on his side on this fall afternoon.  In fact, he was pleased and surprised that his truck even made it until the end of the race.

"It was on the edge of breaking — it was right on the edge," said Benson. "Something was going to break before the end. With 25 laps, the vibration was getting worse and with five laps it was really, really bad. Then with three laps it kept getting worse and worse. I kept having to back pedal — I needed to make it to the checkered flag."

If Benson was feeling lucky — and he was — Hornaday was kicking himself for letting Newman pass him on the last lap. "Second stinks," Hornaday said. "I just missed the corner off  (Turn) 2, and he ran me down and got the momentum. He came and stole my thunder these last couple laps."

And so the fight moves to Texas Motor Speedway next week, still wide open, still up for grabs, still waiting for Hornaday or Benson to make a big move or a big mistake. Atlanta settled nothing — it just meant the fight is one round closer to conclusion.

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.