WWS: Pontiac Racing Quotes

JOHNNY BENSON, NO. 10 LEARNFRAME.COM / LYCOS PONTIAC GRAND PRIX:

"It was a blast. It was fun. We knew we had a pretty good race car. We hung out for a little bit and had some fun. Then at the end the '16' (Brendan Gaughan) was running pretty good and I was doing everything I could to get around him. That added to the fun. Those guys ran extremely well today. I think they ended up third. They probably had a car good enough to win, too. They were pretty good there. It took me awhile to run up on him. I knew I had some experience on him and I forced the issue a little bit. I tried to get him to get his tires hot, and I think that is what ended up happening at the end. But he ran a great race and those guys should be real happy with the way they ran.

"All-in-all I think most of the guys did a terrific job. There were about four or five cars that were pretty dang fast. Obviously we have a little more experience than they have, and that definitely helps. We didn't beat them on horsepower today. I can tell you we were off a little bit. But the car was extremely good through the corners, and that's basically what we wanted to know for tomorrow.

"I figured that's where I was going to get beat was on the restart because, like I said, we were down just a little bit. The engine was like three years old and just been sitting in the shop, and we just threw it in the car. I hated to see that last one (caution). We were just fortunate enough that Kenny (Schrader) got along side Brendan. When he got along side him that helped me out tremendously. I knew those guys would get 'whoaed up' just a little bit. If I beat him to turn one I figured I was in pretty good shape. We managed to get there first."

(ON KEN SCHRADER RUNNING A CAR PURCHASED FROM HIS TEAM) "Kenny bought one of the cars from our shop, so it's kind of cool for our guys to have the cars that they've worked on finish one and two."

(ON TIRE STRATEGY FOR TOMORROW'S WINSTON CUP RACE) "We saw in the Busch race that two tires is good on the short run and four tires are good on the long run. We saw that a little bit today. We took on two tires, tried that the first time and it was OK. But in the long runs it was a little 'slidey.' Then we put on four for the last (run) and I was perfectly fine. I think you'll see a little bit of gambling with everything tomorrow. But traditionally this race runs 'long green,' so you're going to see four tire stops."