Yellow flag drops Benson to 19th at Bristol.

Bristol Motor Speedway might be the toughest track on the NASCAR Winston Cup Circuit.

Between the high speeds, high banks, and 42 competitors beating and banging on the half-mile track, survival quickly becomes the key to any success at Bristol.

Johnny Benson and his #10 Valvoline Pontiac teammates were surviving for most of the Food City 500 on Sunday at Bristol and looked to be ready for a top finish. Many of their competitors were busy wrecking their race cars in a race that saw 17 caution periods.

"Guys if we keep surviving and tuning on this car we are going to get a good finish out of this," said Crew Chief James Ince about halfway through Sunday's race as Benson bided his time waiting for the final third of the race to begin racing.

Benson started the race in 20th and avoided several near collisions and used some timely yellow flags to stay on the lead lap. But of all the potential pitfalls the tough little track has in its bag of tricks, the culprit that ruined Benson's day was NASCAR's yellow flag.

After many early cautions, a relatively calm period at lap 380 saw much of the field come to pit road for a rare green flag stop. When you have 16-second laps, coming to the pits means you lose at least two and sometimes three laps to the cars still on the track.

"We had to come in for fuel," said Ince. "We had no choice."

Race leader Kurt Busch stayed on the track and about ten laps after Benson and others left pit road and just as Busch was ready for his stop, the yellow flew again because of a Dale Jarrett crash. It dropped Benson and those that pitted down three laps and ended his chances of that good finish.

"What can you do," said Benson after the race. "We needed fuel and so we came in and got it. Then the yellow comes out. A lot of teams got caught out like that. Up until then we were just trying to stay on the track and all the fenders on the car. Everyone was wrecking and we knew we had to avoid the trouble this place seems to always hand out."

Benson spent the remainder of the race trying to make up spots and dodging even more wreckage. He was 19th when the chequered flag fell.

Busch used the timely pit stop strategy to lap all but six cars on his way to the victory. Matt Kenseth and Bobby Labonte followed Busch across the finish line.

Next weekend Benson, who dropped to 13th in the season points standings, and his teammates will race Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway.