Valvoline team switches focus.

Anyone judging the #10 MBV Motorsports Valvoline Pontiac team's performance this season shouldn't look for driver Johnny Benson's name in the points race. Instead it's the name of Nelson Bowers that matters.

Bowers, Benson's listed car owner, is 24th in the owner standings while Benson is 35th in the driver standings. A team needs to be in the top 25 of the Winston Cup owners standings to be granted unlimited provisional starting positions.

The three races Benson sat out because of an injury explain why is he near the bottom of the driver point sheet. The owner's sheet rewards points to the team and not the driver allowing the #10 to benefit from Jerry Nadeau and Joe Nemechek's substitute drives for Benson.

These points establish priority in gaining provisionals for future races as well as determining some of the cash payouts at the end of the season. Team haulers park in the garage each weekend in order of owner points and it is a vital moral boost for any team to be up in the 'rich' end of the paddock where most of the all-important media attention is focused.

Benson and his Valvoline teammates expect to continue their points climb Saturday night in Daytona. It is the first track the NASCAR Winston Cup Series visits a second time in 2002 for the annual July 4th weekend Pepsi 400. The Busch Series will race at Daytona Friday night.

Prior to his rib breaking crash at Richmond, Benson had an average finish of 25th in the 10 races prior to his enforced lay off. Since returning to the No. 10 Valvoline Pontiac, he has averaged an eleventh place finish.

Benson has led 60 laps in his last five race at Daytona including 10 laps near the end of this race last season and he leads all active drivers this weekend in the percentage of laps completed in their races at Daytona. Benson has completed 98.6 percent of the laps in the races he has entered at Daytona.

"The driver points tell the story of my season and it's pretty evident I missed three races," said Benson who scored his first career top ten finish at Daytona in February's Daytona 500. "It's going to be hard to climb above a lot of guys with us missing three races. But, the owner points tell the story of the team's season and it is 24th right now and hopefully will get a lot better as the season moves on.

"Some of the fans and media look where I am in the points and say 'you guys have had a 35th-place season.' That's not true. Look at the owner points and you will see this team is ahead of a lot of good teams and not far behind some others. Our goal is to get up in the top 15 in owner points and that's a reachable goal. We will even go for the top-10 if we can.

The Daytona International Speedway played host to what could be Benson's finest moment to date when, during the 2000 Daytona 500 the Michigan born driver led the field in the unsponsored, unfancied Tri Star Motorsports entry. It was that performance that enabled the team to find the sponsorship to continue and eventually join forces with current sponsors Valvoline, Ken Schrader's MB2 Motorsport squad and team owner Bowers

"We always look forward to going to Daytona," added Benson. "We have always run well there it seems. Running under the lights is a lot of fun. Not only do you get Sunday off but for some reason racing under the lights always seems a bit more exciting than racing in daylight. Plus, this year we get to see a Busch race on Friday night so I plan to enjoy my weekend down there.

"I don't know if we will be able to learn anything from the Busch race that we don't already know, but we will be watching and normally those races are way cool there."

The 2.5-mile Daytona Speedway is the first track the Winston Cup Series visits for a second time in 2002 and of the 20 remaining races on the schedule there are only seven that are held on track that the series has yet to visit this year. Despite that, Benson does not believe that this fact will help him that much during the remainder of the year.

"I don't know if it matters going to a track the second time or not," he added. "I have found that when you think you have a track figured out and you go there a second time you end up running bad. But when you run badly at a track the first time sometimes the second time is a lot better. I can't explain why that happens but it just happens."

On racing under the lights Benson joked; "Well I'd hate to race at night without them but the July race under the lights makes the track a bit more similar to the way it is in February. When we used to race here in the daytime in July it was like a totally different track from the way it was in February. Now with the lights the track temperature is a lot cooler and the track is consistent throughout the race.

"It's still all about handling at Daytona but it's not nearly as tough as it would be if we ran it in the afternoon."