A look back at what was a dramatic '08 Truck season

By one position on the racetrack in the season finale Nov. 14 at Homestead-Miami Speedway, Johnny Benson won the Craftsman Truck Series championship, 13 years after claiming his only title in the Nationwide Series.

Benson and Greg Biffle are the only drivers to have won championships in both the Nationwide and Truck Series, but not until Ron Hornaday came up four truck-lengths short in his desperate attempt to catch Benson in the closing laps at Homestead was the issue decided.

A season of success

Johnny Benson capped a grinding halt to the Craftsman Truck Series season in the appropriate way: in the closing laps of the final race. The year was special for Benson, and a few others along the way.

• Benson knew he could win
• Key to the season: Survival
• Davis full circle as an owner
• Rookie Braun has big goals

Benson also is the last Craftsman Truck Series champion, with title sponsorship moving to Camping World starting in 2009. Beginning with the series' debut in 1995, Craftsman sponsored the trucks for 14 consecutive years.

That the title wasn't decided until the final race of the season was a fitting end for a campaign during which two evenly matched teams gradually separated themselves from the rest of the field and staged a battle that was the closest in series history entering the last event. A week earlier, at Phoenix, Benson and Hornaday had performed a comedy of errors -- Hornaday spun and wrecked on the first lap and Benson struggled to keep his No. 23 Toyota between the walls at the 1-mile track.

Quick work in the garage, with some unexpected help from the Ford team of Roush Fenway Racing, got Hornaday's Chevrolet back on the track in time to finish 25th, one position better than Benson. That halved Benson's advantage in the championship standings to three points entering the Ford 200 at Homestead.

Hornaday had the better truck at Homestead, but pit strategy worked in Benson's favor -- and to his rival's detriment -- in deciding the championship. Crew chief Trip Bruce kept Benson on the track while Hornaday came to the pits for fresh tires on Lap 126, and that proved decisive. Hornaday restarted 13th, moved up to ninth before a subsequent caution but could make up only one position during a green-white-checkered-flag restart that took the race to Lap 137, three laps beyond its scheduled distance.

With Hornaday in pursuit and gaining ground, Benson crossed the finish line seventh and secured the championship by seven points.

As exciting as those final laps were, however, Benson said it was his entire body of work that was responsible for his first truck title and the first championship for Bill Davis Racing.

"Well, I can give you in 25 races the reason why we won the championship, because that's what it took," Benson said. "It took 25 races. It started at Daytona when we unloaded, ended when we loaded up [at Homestead], and it's every race. And we've had some good races, we've had some great races, we've had some mediocre races and we've had a lot of heartbreak with one engine blown. We had a couple tires blown and wrecked. Every one of those is a decision or a result of us being here winning a championship.

"You know, like I say, it takes a whole year, and it's just a way ... cool deal here. I don't think people understand how much this means to me to win this, but not just for me, for Bill and Gail [Davis], everybody at Bill Davis Racing ... I'll remember this for many, many years to come."

Ron Hornaday

Truck Series

2008 Race Winners

Driver	Wins
Ron Hornaday	6
Johnny Benson	5
Kyle Busch	3
Todd Bodine	2
Dennis Setzer	1
Matt Crafton	1
Donny Lia	1
Scott Speed	1
Erik Darnell	1
Mike Skinner	1
Ryan Newman	1
Kevin Harvick	1

Benson's assessment is apt. Throughout much of the season, he and Hornaday traded the championship lead, much as Hornaday had done with Mike Skinner the previous year, when Hornaday won his third title in the series.

After Hornaday won at Texas in June, the field was still tightly bunched, with Hornaday leading Matt Crafton by 45 points, Benson by 55, Todd Bodine by 65 and Rick Crawford and Jack Sprague by 71. The lead changed hands the following week at Michigan, where Benson seized the points lead with a second-place finish to Hornaday's 23rd.

Benson's third-place finish at Texas began a 10-race stretch during which he won four times -- including consecutive victories at Kentucky, O'Reilly Raceway Park and Nashville -- finished second twice, third twice and fourth once to pull away from everyone except Hornaday. The only hiccup in those 10 races came at Memphis, where Benson blew an engine, finished 33rd and temporarily lost the points lead.

From that point on, the contest was too close to call. After Hornaday finished fifth Sept. 20 at Las Vegas and Benson crashed out in 27th position, Benson's lead was a single point. Hornaday was up 39 points after running second at Talladega, but Benson scored a 104-point turnaround at Martinsville, winning the race after Hornaday ran out of fuel with three laps remaining and finished 29th.

After a runner-up finish at Atlanta, Hornaday picked up his sixth win of the season the next week at Texas, race No. 23 of 25, to narrow the lead to six points heading to Phoenix.

Notable not just for Benson's first championship, the series saw three consecutive first-time winners, starting with Matt Crafton, who picked up his first victory in the series after more than seven years of trying. Donny Lia followed with a win at Mansfield, and Scott Speed -- blue toenails and all -- took the checkered flag the following week at Dover.

Another first-time winner was Ryan Newman, Hornaday's teammate-for-a-day for Kevin Harvick Inc. at Atlanta. Newman won the race in his only start in the series. In retrospect, if Newman and runner-up Hornaday had switched finishing positions in that event, Hornaday would have been series champion.

Other season highlights included three wins from Kyle Busch; the debut of Randy Moss Motorsports, as the all-pro NFL wide receiver put the No. 81 truck on the track; and Colin Braun, 20, posting three top-fives and eight top-10s in winning the rookie of the year title.

• Erik Darnell won the Keystone Light Pole Award at Daytona, posting his first pole at Daytona and just the second of his career.

• Todd Bodine won at Daytona. Not only was it his first Truck Series victory there, it was his first ever at the 2.5-mile superspeedway. Bodine was winless in nine Cup Series and 11 Nationwide Series Daytona races. He also competed in six Gatorade Duels and four Budweiser Shootouts, bringing his total number of Daytona races to 33. Bodine's victory at Daytona continued the streak of a different Truck Series Daytona race winner for the ninth consecutive year.

• Jack Sprague set a new Martinsville qualifying record of 96.327 mph, eclipsing the mark set by Mike Skinner one year earlier.

Todd Bodine

Truck Series

2008 Season Bests

Wins	Ron Hornaday (6)
Top-fives	Todd Bodine (15)
Top-10s	Three drivers (18)
Poles	Ron Hornaday (5)
Laps Led	Ron Hornaday (1,326)
LL Finishes	Two drivers (22)
Avg. Start	Ron Hornaday (4.3)
Avg. Finish	Kyle Busch (6.5)

• Ron Hornaday won at Kansas -- his 34th series victory. Hornaday has won in 11 of his 12 Truck Series seasons.

• There were eight lead changes and 34 cars running at the finish at Martinsville, both tying the track records.

• Kyle Busch won the pole at Lowe's Motor Speedway and posted Toyota's 50th pole in 106 Truck Series races.

• Matt Crafton (Lowe's Motor Speedway), Donny Lia (Mansfield) and Scott Speed (Dover) all scored their career-first victories this season. Speed became the third first-time winner in as many races, the third time in series history that there have been three consecutive first-time winners. Mike Skinner (Phoenix), Hornaday (Tucson) and Ken Schrader (Saugus) won the first three races of the series in the 1995 inaugural season. Andy Houston (New Hampshire), Terry Cook (Flemington) and Jimmy Hensley (Nashville) posted their career-first victories in back-to-back-to-back races in 1998.

• Matt Crafton's win at Lowe's Motor Speedway was his career-first victory in 178 races and set the record for the most races before a career-first victory in the Truck Series. Bryan Reffner held the previous mark of 111 races before his first win at Texas (1996-2000).

• Not only did Donny Lia (Mansfield) and Scott Speed (Dover) post their career-first victory this season -- for both it was the first time they had led a lap.

• Johnny Benson notched three consecutive wins with his victory at Nashville Superspeedway. It was the fifth time in series history that a driver had won three in a row.

• Bobby East won the pole and led four laps at ORP. It was his first career pole and the first time he has led a lap in his career.

• Johnny Benson led the final 46 laps in the fall race at Martinsville -- the first laps he has ever led in 11 series races there.

• Ryan Newman won the fall race at Atlanta, joining Mike Skinner, Robert Pressley and Kasey Kahne as the only drivers to win in his series debut. Newman became the 19th driver to post victories in all three of NASCAR's top three national series with his win in at Atlanta.

• Ron Hornaday won his sixth race of the 2008 season with his victory in the fall race at Texas. It was his fourth victory since turning 50 eight days before he won at Memphis in June. Hornaday finished the season one win shy of tying Joe Ruttman for the most wins by a driver 50 or older in a single season. Ruttman won five times in 1997 at the age of 52 and 53.