NASCAR Truck

Bristol: Winners interview

JOHNNY BENSON, No. 23 Exide Batteries Toyota Tundra, Bill Davis Racing Finished: 1st Can you talk about the pit strategy of your team to stay out early? "We talked about coming in early, but decided against it. We never thought everybody else ...

Edited: Aug 24, 2007, 3:47 AM

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JOHNNY BENSON, No. 23 Exide Batteries Toyota Tundra, Bill Davis Racing Finished: 1st

Can you talk about the pit strategy of your team to stay out early?

"We talked about coming in early, but decided against it. We never thought everybody else would come. I was daydreaming. I had no idea that everyone in front of us came in. Everybody on this team did just a great job. This engine ran awesome. This truck was awesome and I couldn't be happier."

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."

-credit: toyota motorsports

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