Although Todd Bodine was the big winner, Erik Darnell and Johnny Benson can look back on a fine season, too. Credit: Autostock

2006 Truck Honors

Driver of the Year: Todd Bodine

Based on his previous close encounters with a championship in the Busch Series, it was no surprise that once Todd Bodine grabbed the points lead in the Craftsman Truck Series, he wasn't about to let it go.

	Todd Bodine completed all but four laps in the 2006 Truck Series season. Credit: Autostock
	Inside the Numbers Bodine's 2006 statistics Wins 3 Top-5s 12 Top-10s 16 Avg. Start 12.0 Avg. Finish 8.4 Poles 1 DNFs 0 Laps Led 287 Earnings $604,310 • Complete stats, click here Bodine celebratesTodd ends racing family's drought with Truck Series title Sign up for TrackPass now BUY THE NEXTEL i836

Five times Bodine had finished in the top five in the Busch Series, including runner-up to Randy Lajoie in 1997. And having won five truck races in 2005 -- including three in a row to finish the season -- Bodine had to feel that momentum was on his side heading into 2006.

He was right.

Despite losing back-to-back races to Mark Martin on green-white-checkered finishes to open the season, Bodine was relentless. He earned his revenge over Martin at Atlanta, beat teammate Ted Musgrave at St. Louis and scored a last-lap victory over Mike Skinner at Texas.

Bodine passed Martin for the points lead after his win at Gateway, and despite pressure from first Musgrave and then Johnny Benson, never relinquished his grasp on the first national NASCAR title won by a member of the family of racing brothers from Chemung, N.Y.

"For what this family's gone through [in racing] ... it's very special for us," Bodine said. "I told my mom, 'We finally did it.' It's the first time a family member has done something so important.

"You just can't put it into words. It's just incredible. ... This cements the fact we're champions -- no ifs, ands or buts."

In addition to his three wins, Bodine collected 12 top-fives and 16 top-10s. He didn't have a finish of worse than 20th until he stumbled to a 25th-place effort late in the season at Atlanta -- but by then, his lead over Benson was almost insurmountable.

How dominant was Bodine's season? He never suffered a race-ending crash or mechanical failure, completing an astounding 4,075 of the 4,079 laps run.

Still, what if Martin had run the entire season? In just 14 starts, Martin won six times, posted 11 top-fives and 12 top-10s. Despite running little more than half of the races, Martin still wound up 19th in the points -- ahead of seven other drivers who made at least 20 starts.

Martin opened and closed the season with wins and ran up front, no matter the surface or size. His victories came on tracks as varied as the high-banked superspeedways of Daytona and Talladega, the concrete Dover mile and short-track Bristol.

Comeback Driver of the Year: Johnny Benson

	Before 2006, Johnny Benson had never won a Truck Series race. Credit: Autostock
	Inside the Numbers Benson's 2006 statistics Wins 5 Top-5s 13 Top-10s 17 Avg. Start 11.4 Avg. Finish 10.2 Poles 1 DNFs 1 Laps Led 315 Earnings $574,975 • Complete stats, click here

With a Busch Series championship in 1995, Johnny Benson's future in NASCAR appeared bright. However, the Michigan native was never able to replicate his success in NASCAR's premier series.

In 271 Cup starts, Benson's lone victory came at Rockingham in 2002 -- and by the end of the 2003 season, he was out of a full-time ride.

At 41, it appeared his career was over. But a call from Bill Davis landed Benson in the No. 23 Toyota truck -- and it's been an uphill climb ever since.

After finishing 10th in the Craftsman Truck Series standings in 2005, Benson stayed in contention for the 2006 title until the season finale, scoring five wins, 13 top-fives and 17 top-10s en route to his best season in more than a decade.

Benson started off the season with his trademark consistency, posting lead-lap finishes in eight of the first nine races. Then the team, behind crew chief Rick Ren, earned a breakthrough victory at Michigan, leading 31 laps at beating Mark Martin by .112 seconds.

That seemed to spur Benson to greater heights. He won by more than 2 seconds the next weekend at Milwaukee, made a last-lap pass of Jack Sprague to score win No. 3 at Nashville, dominated the field at New Hampshire and was a man on a mission at Phoenix.

Handling problems in the season finale at Homestead, coupled with a late-race incident, kept Benson from making a serious charge at eventual champion Todd Bodine, but there's no doubt Benson can point to 2006 with pride.

His five victories were one more than he had earned in all of NASCAR's three major national series to that point.

Rookie of the Year: Erik Darnell

	Erik Darnell finished the season with three third-place finishes in the final five races. Credit: Autostock
	Inside the Numbers Darnell's 2006 statistics Wins 0 Top-5s 4 Top-10s 12 Avg. Start 12.5 Avg. Finish 13.6 Poles 1 DNFs 2 Laps Led 24 Earnings $381,660 • Complete stats, click here

With more than a dozen candidates for 2006 Craftsman Truck Series rookie of the year, one stood head and shoulders above the rest.

Erik Darnell, a third-generation racer from Illinois, posted 12 top-10 finishes and closed the season with five consecutive strong runs to overwhelm the rest of the first-year field this season.

Darnell, a former go-kart and short-track champion, made his Truck Series debut in 2004 at Milwaukee, finishing 26th.

Winning Jack Roush's driver talent competition earned Darnell a full-time ride in 2006 -- and he made the most of it.

He immediately started off with a sixth at Daytona, an 11th at California, an eighth at Atlanta and another 11th at Martinsville.

In fact, Darnell finished better than 13th in six of the first seven races, which put him 11th in the points.

However, a series of bad finishes would drop him all the way back to 16th before he turned his season around with a second-place effort at Memphis, losing to Jack Sprague by .251 seconds and leading 11 laps.

Darnell would win the pole at Nashville two races later -- and put together a 13-race stretch where he never finished outside of the top 20 and 14 consecutive races with a lead-lap finish.

Darnell finished with a flourish, posting consecutive third-place efforts at Martinsville and Atlanta, running ninth at Texas, 10th at Phoenix and another third in the season finale at Homestead.

Tasmanian native Marcos Ambrose traded his Supercar expertise Down Under for a lesson in oval racing in 2006. He learned well, scoring a pole at Kentucky and top-five finishes at Kansas and Nashville.

Chad McCumbee and Aric Almirola also showed bright futures, with three top-10 finishes apiece.

Team of the Year: Germain Racing

	Todd Bodine gave Germain Racing a championship in only its second full season of racing. Credit: CIA Stock Photo
	FINISHING WITH A BANG Todd Bodine's championship was the culmination of two front-running seasons and ended the racing family's quest for a NASCAR title. "You just can't put it into words," he said.  •   Complete recap, click here TRUCK SERIES •   By the Numbers •   Driver Standings •   Race Results •   Loop Data Stats •   2007 Schedule

Active in motorsports sponsorships for three decades, the three brothers who founded Germain Racing -- Bob, Steve and Rick -- made their initial splash into the Craftsman Truck Series as owners near the end of the 2004 season.

Keeping it all in the family, the Germains hired a pair of Mike Hillmans -- the father as general manager and son as crew chief -- and then added driver Todd Bodine, who just happened to be the youngest of the three racing brothers from New York.

When Jim Smith shut down his Ultra Motorsports team after winning the 2005 championship, Ted Musgrave found himself as Bodine's teammate at the beginning of this season.

Bodine, coming off a five-win season in 2005, and Musgrave, with 16 career truck victories, proved to be a powerhouse team right from the get-go.

Musgrave started the season with six consecutive top-fives. Bodine added eight in his first 10 races.

The teammates finished second and third behind Mark Martin in the season opener at Daytona, then again at California. Bodine then won at Atlanta, with Musgrave fourth.

After Musgrave wound up second at Martinsville, the team went for the 1-2 punch at St. Louis, with Bodine beating Musgrave by .433 seconds. At that point, Bodine moved into the points lead by 12 over Musgrave -- and would never be caught.

Musgrave slipped from the runner-up slot during a stretch where he failed to crack the top-20 in three consecutive races near the middle of the season. However, he wound up with 10 top-fives and 13 top-10s, good enough for a sixth-place finish in the final standings.

How closely matched were Bodine and Musgrave? The teammates recorded top-10 finishes 11 times in 25 races, and ended up one position apart on eight separate occasions.