Benson wins again at Milwaukee

It was a pretty odd, rainy race tonight as Johnny Benson won the Camping World RV Sales 200.

For Benson, this is his third consecutive win in as many years at Milwaukee, obviously very impressive. Part of it is him, as he clearly knows his way around the track and can drive well on the straight surface. However, a lot of the success also goes with his crew, as they know how to put a good car for the race together.

Benson led for most of the race, getting a commanding lead right out of the gate, and led all but three of the first fifty laps. That is pretty dominating.

On lap seventy-seven, just seven cars were on the lead-lap after Paul Poutler brought out the caution flag. This happened while green-flag pit stops were being made, which explains why so many cars were lapped.

On lap one hundred, a huge wreck was started when Jack Sprague's car was spun by Brendan Gaughan, collecting many drivers, including Ron Hornaday, Mike Skinner, and Ted Musgrave.

After the clean-up with barely any cars in contention for the lead, Erik Darnell, last week's winner, jumped out to the lead, but was eventually passed by Rick Crawford. Benson was just hanging out in third and fourth place.

Caution then came out for light rain on lap one hundred forty-six, prompting all the cars to come in for pit stops. Benson's crew got him out first, which makes them a key part of his win tonight. He couldn't say enough about them after the race as a reusult. Matt Crafton followed in second, and Crawford came out third. However, he had to go to the tail end of the line because he was speeding down pit road. That's unfortunate, as he really had the only car that could challenge Benson's.

After that, the red flag came out because of violent thunderstorms, making all the fans get out of the stands. That was over fairly quickly, and the cars went back out to race.

With about fifty laps left, Benson simply pulled away from the field and embarrassed the competition. There was no question that he had the best car by far in the field. Again, the pit crew getting him out first really helped, as clean air and space is big at Milwaukee.

So in the end, this was the top ten:

1. Johnny Benson
2. Matt Crafton
3. Landon Cassill
4. Erik Darnell
5. Todd Bodine
6. Michael Annett
7. Ron Hornaday
8. Rick Crawford
9. Terry Cook
10. Mike Skinner

Here are the full results from truckseries.com.

So, a dominating performance from Benson, getting him his first victory of this season and increasing his lead in the standings. The next stop on the schedule is next week in Memphis.

I'll do a CTS standings report either later tonight or early next morning, so look for that.