Benson, Wyler Racing off to good beginning in COT

RICHMOND, Va. -- Johnny Benson laughed Friday when asked when his last Nextel Cup start had come, as if it was part of pre-Civil War history.

"I don't know, man," he said. That event occurred in October 2005, a season in which Benson made three Cup starts in Dodges for his Craftsman Truck Series team owner, Bill Davis.

Johnny Benson

Cup stats

Starts	271
Wins	1
Top-5s	18
Top-10s	58
Poles	2
Avg. Start	23.2
Avg. Finish	21.0

• Complete Cup stats

Benson, the 1995 Busch Series champion who began racing for Davis in trucks midway through 2004 and warmed up in 2005 before winning five races and becoming a championship contender last season, qualified 31st for Wyler Racing's Cup debut in Saturday night's Crown Royal 400.

The Wylers' crew chief Tony Furr, a fiercely proud man who's won in Cup racing and who now leads a championship contending Truck Series team for driver Jack Sprague and owners Jeff and David Wyler, had no such problem.

Furr, who had pitted his No. 46 Toyota Camry Car of Tomorrow on Richmond International Raceway's pit road all day Friday because the Nextel Cup garage was full, had just been asked when his team was moving "into the big house next door?"

"I haven't been in the [Cup] garage in three years," Furr said. "But I have been truck racing, and I want to thank the Wylers and Toyota for giving me the opportunity to come back over here and prove what I could do.

"And I've got to thank all the guys on the crew -- just a great bunch of guys. We have one of the premier Truck teams, so to me, that says that the Truck Series is a really strong series, too, to be able to come here and do what we just did."

A little Toyota Racing Development (TRD) sticker was on the car's quarter-panels -- the only sponsor signage on it -- and what the team accomplished wasn't lost on TRD senior vice president Lee White.

"We were their partner in bringing it here and we got them an engine to come here because we saw how they tested," White said. "We were interested in that and we were interested in the technology that's in that car.

"So we've made a deal with them to try and learn more. It's part of our learning process."

Father Jeff and son David Wyler, in only their third year in NASCAR racing, Furr and Benson did virtually the unthinkable early Friday evening when, as the first car off pit road in Bud Pole Qualifying, they made the field. (Continued)