Todd Bodine may have won Friday night's Ford 200 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway, but a pair of calls in the pits earned the wily Johnny Benson a seventh-place finish exactly what he needed to secure the championship.
After pitting for four tyres under caution on lap 126, Ron Hornaday Jr. chased Benson to the stripe during a green-white chequered flag finish that took the race three laps beyond its scheduled 134-lap distance. Hornaday came home eighth, one position behind Benson and one position short of his fourth title.
Benson's team changed plans at the last second and kept the No. 23 Toyota on the track during that caution, and that decision proved to be the winning move.
Benson won the championship by seven points over his Chevy-driving rival, and is the only driver other than Greg Biffle to clinch titles in both the Craftsman Truck and Nationwide Series. Benson re-started sixth and Hornaday 13th on lap 130, and Hornaday gained four spots to ninth before Tayler Malsam and Jack Sprague collided on the back stretch to set up the two-lap sprint to the finish.
Bodine beat rookie Brian Scott to the finish line by 0.232 seconds his third triumph of the season and 15th of his career, and one that secured third place in the final standings with Kevin Harvick finishing third, Kyle Busch fourth and Dennis Setzer fifth.
It was only fun at the end not at the beginning or the middle, admitted a delighted Benson, who fought handling problems early in the race and who has announced he will not remain with Bill Davis Racing in 2009. If those guys hadn't come in, I might have come in, but when they came in I knew what he (crew chief Trip Bruce) wanted to do, so I stayed out.
All these guys behind me that worked on this thing are great friends. We've worked very hard to make this happen. Tonight was about Trip Bruce making the right calls.
