Benson takes checkered, points lead in Martinsville

MARTINSVILLE, Va. -- Polesitter Ron Hornaday led the first 154 laps of Saturday's Kroger 200 Craftsman Truck Series race at Martinsville Speedway, but Johnny Benson led the next 46 -- including the one that counted.

With Hornaday running out of gas during a five-lap sprint to the finish, Benson cruised to the finish line .785 seconds ahead of Dennis Setzer, and ahead of a multi-car wreck off Turn 4. Rick Crawford was third, followed by Kyle Busch and Todd Bodine (watch video).

Kroger 200

Official Results

Pos.	Driver	Make
1.	Johnny Benson	Toyota
2.	Dennis Setzer	Dodge
3.	Rick Crawford	Ford
4.	Kyle Busch	Toyota
5.	Todd Bodine	Toyota
6.	T.J. Bell	Chevrolet
7.	Scott Speed	Toyota
8.	Matt Crafton	Chevrolet
9.	Sam Hornish Jr.	Dodge
10.	Timothy Peters	Dodge

• Results | Videos | Photos

After running out of fuel, Hornaday came to a stop on the track, dropped to 29th at the finish and saw his 39-point lead on Benson in the championship standings transformed into a 65-point deficit with four races left in the season.

Benson, who had never before led a lap in the Truck Series at the .526-mile short track, won his fifth race of the season and the 14th of his career in vaulting past Hornaday for the points lead.

With more than three hours to kill between qualifying and the race itself, Benson watched Sprint Cup practice and took his observations to heart.

"I learned a lot," Benson said. "I watched the No. 24 [seven-time Martinsville winner Jeff Gordon], and I watched a bunch of different lines, sitting around for about three hours waiting for the race to start."

As it turned out, however, it was a fuel shortage that kept Hornaday from battling Benson for the win. The field was bunched for a restart on Lap 196, after Jeff Green slammed the backstretch wall to bring out the ninth caution of the race, but the anticipated battle between Benson and Hornaday never developed.

"We've just got to get better fuel mileage," said Hornaday, the defending series champion. "We've got to go back and figure this thing out. I don't know where this puts us [in the standings], but it was a bad day for us. I was saving fuel the whole time -- trying to. I was shutting the truck off, flipping it back on. Still didn't save enough."

One critical decision came early in the race, on Lap 36, when Benson took four tires and fuel under caution, while Hornaday retained the top spot with a fuel-only stop. With fresh rubber on his No. 23 Tundra, Benson worked his way to the front. On Lap 81, Benson passed Kevin Harvick for the second position, and after a restart on Lap 120, he and Hornaday ran side by side for the lead for five laps, with Hornaday able to hold the top spot on the outside of Benson (watch video).

The two drivers repeated that scenario after a restart on Lap 153, but this time Benson, with his fresher tires, was able to pass for the lead when Hornaday's Chevrolet slipped in Turn 3 on Lap 155.