Benson eager for Richmond revenge.

Sometimes the fastest thing in NASCAR isn't the speed of the cars but how quickly things change. Just look at the weekend Johnny Benson endured at Richmond in May when a potentially victorious weekend turned into a two-night stay in hospital.

Benson and his #10 Valvoline MBV Pontiac Winston Cup team were looking forward to a good weekend at the three-quarter mile tri-oval and the Grand Rapids native was further buoyed by the news that he would be making his first NASCAR Busch Series start of the year for team owner Ted Marsh.

Benson posted the fastest speed in Busch practice on Thursday but was then handed the 43rd and final starting position when qualifying was rained out. He then turned in the fastest laps in the final two Winston Cup practice sessions Friday evening and was all set to start the Pontiac Excitement Winston Cup event from the 16th starting position when things changed in a flash.

Minutes after Winston Cup practice ended, in his inaugural Busch race of the season behind the wheel of the #31 Whelen Engineering Chevrolet, the high hopes came to an end when another car slammed Benson from behind sending him for a two-night stay in a local hospital with one broken and two cracked ribs.

Benson missed the Winston Cup race on Sunday plus the Winston, Charlotte and Dover races. He returned for Pocono and Michigan but was wrecked again at Daytona breaking three different ribs and missing the Chicago and New Hampshire races.

Obviously, Richmond represents a lot of frustration for the driver who expected to contend for a top-10 finish in the 2002 points race. But things can change from bad to good just as quickly as it changed the other way in May. Richmond could be the right place for that to happen to Benson who has posted three consecutive top-10 finishes at .75-mile D-shaped oval.

Although Benson is now fully recovered from his injuries, he still cannot remember the full extent of his Busch Series accident, which occurred when he and Busch Series rookie Brian Vickers collided on lap 21 of the Hardee's 250.

"I remember most of the time I was there last time, but not all of it," says the 1995 Busch Series Champion. "I remember getting hit and I remember going all the way up and hitting the wall. But, it's really weird to watch the video and see me getting out of the car. I don't remember that, so there is a little bit that's fuzzy. But, I guess I wasn't knocked out. They said I was moving right away, but I don't remember some of that."

Asked whether or not drivers approach a track where they have wrecked in the past with a sense of dread, Benson said no. "I don't think so. If you were going to a track where you screwed up and had a bad wreck then you might think twice about going back. That's just human nature. But when somebody else does something to you at a track then you really don't think about the track.

"I mean last time we were here at Richmond we were minding our own business and got wrecked. There's not much you can do about that and you certainly can't think the track had any part of that.

"There are weekends where things don't go well and you get pretty frustrated. Wrecking during one of those weekends might be a bit easier to swallow. But at Richmond in May we were the best in both garages. I look back at that weekend and what I remember most is that we had a great racecar on the Cup side and on the Busch side. That's what I think about. It was just unfortunate we had the accident and I couldn't race on Sunday. There isn't much you can do about it so you don't worry about it."

Benson arrives at RIR this weekend on the back of a disappointing 34th place finish in last weekend's Mountain Dew Southern 500 at Darlington. After finishing eighth at his home race in Michigan and then twelfth at Bristol a week later, Benson and his MBV crew felt that things were beginning to turn round for them before problems returned at Darlington. A good run this weekend could relegate that finish to a mere blip on the radar as the #10 team aim to get themselves back into the top 25 in Owner's Points before the end of the year.

"I love Richmond," added Benson, who has four career NWC top ten finishes at RIR. "I can't wait to go back there. It's a great place to race and it seems like we have always had success there. Richmond is a track where you do a lot of slipping and sliding. You want to get out front, stay up with the lead cars and at the end hopefully you will be in a position to win.

"We have always raced pretty well up there. We have great equipment and it's a type of track I like. It's nice and smooth and it's a track where finesse is the key. Those are the kind of tracks where I like to race. Along with everyone else also."