Benson finally wins in Rockingham thriller.

Johnny Benson held off Mark Martin to score his long-awaited maiden career Winston Cup duel in a memorable late race duel at the North Carolina Speedway as the 2002 NWC title chase narrowed to just two drivers.

After so many close calls during his seven-year Winston Cup career it would have almost been a letdown had Johnny Benson not fought every inch of the way to earn the right to take a trip to the Winners Circle. If that was the case then Sunday's Pop Secret 400 should have satisfied just about everybody as the popular Michigan native barely edged out Rockingham expert Mark Martin to win both his, and his MBV Motorsports team's debut victory.

Benson led the final 28 laps of Sunday's 393-lap affair at the testing 1.017-mile North Carolina Speedway, all the while nursing his tyres and anxiously watching the fuel gauge of his #10 Valvoline Pontiac as he tried to fend off the Roush Racing veteran. Several times during the final 20 laps Martin managed to get a nose ahead of Benson as the Pontiac man struggled for grip in turns three and four on tyres that were almost 100 laps old, but on each occasion Benson rode his luck and it paid off.

In what must have been a surreal final 30 or so laps for Martin, chasing a car bearing a sponsorship livery synonymous with his own exploits, the driver of what is now the #6 Pfizer/Viagra Ford finally gave best to Benson by a scant two-tenths of a second. Despite missing out on the win, Martin equalled Benson's points haul for the race owing to the fact he led a total of 144 laps, 39 more than third place finisher Kurt Busch and 144 more than Winston Cup points leader Tony Stewart.

Stewart's day began badly from the outside of the twelfth row of the grid when he made contact with Jeff Burton's #99 CITGO Ford exiting turn four on lap five. Not happy with the handling of the #20 Home Depot Pontiac in the first place, that contact seemed to make things work for the Joe Gibbs driver as he slipped to 31st at the 50-lap mark despite an early stop under caution (lap 22) to try and 'free-up' his grossly understeering car.

Things got worse for the current Winston Cup points leader during the long green flag run that followed the day's opening caution period as the 'push' got even more severe. With Martin and Jeff Green setting an electric pace at the head of the field, Stewart soon found himself in danger of going a lap down and although it took the Roush Racing veteran several laps to find a way past, on lap 91 Martin simply out-dragged Stewart out of the second turn to remove his title rival from the lead lap.

A lightning quick green flag fuel stop around the 100 lap mark put Stewart back on the lead lap in 20th position but as the stint wore on, once again he began to fall back into the clutches of the leaders. From the lap 130 mark onwards, Stewart would never regain his place on the lead lap as he continued to describe his car as being the worst it had been all year.

Almost unthinkably, Stewart fell as low as 32nd at the lap 225 mark and was in great danger of falling two laps down to the leaders before a much needed caution came to his aid on lap 229 when debris was spotted in one of the turns.

After a 202-lap green flag stretch, no less than three cautions fell between laps 229 and 290 which not only allowed Stewart's Home Depot crew to make some major adjustments, but it also allowed their exemplary pit work to shine through as Stewart gradually began moving up the order.

The fourth and final caution period of the day fell on lap 290, when Ward Burton made hard contact with the turn three wall following a brush with Brett Bodine and when the green flag flew on lap 296, Stewart was sitting in 24th slot.

97 laps around the North Carolina Speedway on a single tank of fuel and a single set of tyres is a major ask of any team and although many of the Chevrolet teams were reasonably confident of making it to the finish without another pit stop, there was concern amongst others and flat out 'no way' from others. Stewart took advantage of this during the closing stages as he gradually picked off car after car as some chose to make a precautionary splash-and-go and others had no choice but to really lean out the fuel mixture. By the time the chequered flag fell Stewart had not only hauled himself into a race-high 14th position but also managed to somehow all but eliminate three of his four remaining title rivals.

While Stewart saw his overall lead to Martin shrink to an unofficial margin of just 87 with two races to go, problems for Jimmie Johnson, Ryan Newman and Rusty Wallace virtually ruled them out of title contention.

Bud Pole winner Newman simply sailed away from the field at the start of the race, taking advantage of a fierce three car scrap for second between Jamie McMurray, Mike Skinner and Todd Bodine to pull out a four second plus lead in the opening 20 laps

However, as he did two weeks ago at Martinsville, Newman appeared to pay for his early over-exuberance as some 20 laps after the first caution period of the day on lap 21, Newman conceded the lead to Martin and then proceeded to fall off the pace. After a slow-ish stop under green flag conditions around the lap 180 mark, Newman fell back as low as 29th. Although he put up a spirited fight to win back his place on the lead lap on the restart from the final caution, the #12 Alltel Ford finally succumbed for good on with around 40 laps to go and fell further down the order when Newman had to pit for fuel in the final 20 laps.

Newman eventually wound up two laps down in 23rd position and is now 225 points behind Stewart in fourth position overall. Just six points ahead of Newman, but 219 behind Stewart, in third spot overall is Newman's fellow rookie Jimmie Johnson. Johnson's fairytale title dreams seem to have ended following another rough race in which he had to make two unscheduled stops and one extended pit visit to fix a problem with one of the rear hubs. After a steady start to the race, things began to come unglued for the #48 Hendrick Motorsports team shortly after lap 200 when Johnson began experiencing a bad vibration in the rear of his Chevy and he eventually finished a disappointing 37th, 14 laps behind Benson.

Wallace, in the sister Penske Racing Ford to Newman also had a tough day almost from the word go and was never really a factor for victory. Although he hung around the top ten for much of the first half of the race, the driver of the #2 Miller Lite Ford fell a lap down and, like his teammate also had to make a late stop for fuel. The end result for the 1989 Winston Cup Champion was a 27th place finish and a drop to sixth in the overall standings, 266 points behind Stewart.

Moving above Wallace into fifth place overall is Roush Racing's Kurt Busch, who led more laps than anyone else bar Benson en-route to a strong third place finish. Racing hard with his own teammate for the lad inside the final 100 laps, Busch looked like he was building up for a third straight win before Benson overtook Martin for second place with 50 laps to go and began stalking the #97 Rubbermaid Ford.

Mindful of the fact that many of the other Ford teams were having to pit late for fuel, Busch turned the power right down once Benson had passed him for the lead and settled for a somewhat distant third place, six seconds behind the winner.

Finishing in fourth place to give Jack Roush three cars in the top four, Jeff Burton brought the #99 CITGO team a welcome top five finish as the overall Roush fuel economy once again proved superior to its peers.

Jeff Gordon finished fifth after a hard day's toil in the #24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet and the outgoing Winston Cup Champion was given a real fight in the latter stages by an inspired Mike Skinner. Skinner, whose #4 Kodak Chevrolet is now crew-chiefed by Chris Carrier, the man who guided Joe Nemechek to victory in the 2001 Pop Secret 400, had his best day of the year by far and gave Morgan McClure Motorsports their first top ten finish since the 2000 Pop Secret 400 when Bobby Hamilton finished ninth.

Bobby Labonte, spring Rockingham winner Matt Kenseth, Ricky Craven and early race leader Jeff Green rounded out the top ten and also completed the list of finishers to complete all 393 laps.

Robby Gordon was the first man one lap down in eleventh place while Dale Jarrett, Kenny Wallace, Stewart and Jamie McMurray completed the top 15.

As always, several drivers left the track with a finish that completely mis-represents their performance and Todd Bodine, Ken Schrader and Greg Biffle headed this weekend's unlucky losers.

Bodine's heroic day from the third starting position in the #26 Discover Card Ford came to a heartbreaking end on lap 257 when he cut a right front tyre entering turn one and made hard contact with the outside wall. With serious damage to the right hand side of the car it was sent straight to the garage leaving Bodine a lowly 42nd in the final classification. He, and team owner Travis Carter had made a point though after spending more than half the race comfortably stationed in and around the top five.

Schrader had a top ten run going in the #36 M&M's Pontiac only to run out of fuel on the penultimate lap and drop to 22nd while Biffle performed admirably in the #44 Georgia Pacific Dodge all weekend only to fall foul of some less than impressive fuel mileage in the final stint and drop to 25th. Had the caution flags fallen for him, the current Busch Series points leader could well have scored his maiden Winston Cup top ten finish.

Despite the various disappointments, the mood up and down the paddock after the race was one of overwhelming joy as Benson, crew chief James Ince and the rest of the MBV team celebrated a hard fought, and thoroughly deserved victory.

A drained Kurt Busch could have summed the result up best when he said in his post race interview "If I had to lose today, I couldn't have lost to two nicer people."