Valvoline Racing, Johnny Benson pre-Daytona quotes

Another Daytona '2000' for Benson?

A combination of hard driving and canny pit-stop strategy nearly enabled Johnny Benson to pull off one of racing's great upsets in the 2000 Daytona 500. Driving an unsponsored car, he came within four laps of winning The Great American Race.

NASCAR observers have noted this season's revised aerodynamic rules package is similar to that used two years ago. So has Benson, who begins his second campaign in the No. 10 Valvoline co-owned and sponsored Pontiac crewed by James Ince, in the Feb. 17 Daytona 500. Valvoline is the only major consumer products company to co-own a Winston Cup team. The No. 10 is showcasing an updated graphics "look" this year.

"I think our speedway program has been pretty good since I've been with the 10 team," Benson said at the recent Winston Cup Preview in Winston-Salem, N.C. "I've had a shot at being right up front every year; we had a mechanical problem last year running about fourth late in the race, so we've got good hopes of going down there and running good. The rules are similar to what they were maybe two years ago and we ran up front then, too; we just have to see if we can't finish it off and hopefully win it. The goal is to qualify well and be around all day and see what you can do at the end of the race. I feel confident we will be in pretty good shape and hopefully things hold tight for us at the end of the race.

"We were competitive that year (2000) and finished 12th, so I mean that was a year that we had a good run. We had an opportunity to win the race and that's really all you can ask for and, hopefully, this year when we get down to that point and if we're leading it like we did in 2000 . . . I don't know what I could do any different, but we'll have to look at it and see if we can make it different at the end."

-vr/db-