Benson welcomes SAFER Richmond.

This weekend's unveiling of recently-installed SAFER barriers at Richmond International Raceway might be a prelude to one day having all NASCAR tracks equipped with the energy-absorbing walls, and Winston Cup veteran Johnny Benson, for one, welcomes the idea.

Only Indianapolis uses the system now, but the three-quarter mile Richmond track is due to debut its system for the NASCAR circus this weekend and New Hampshire will be similarly equipped for the October race.

The SAFER barrier is four steel tubes welded in about 20-foot sections and bolted to the concrete walls. Between the steel and the concrete, pads of hard foam are placed about ten feet apart, allowing the surface to bend and thereby reduce force.

Benson is particularly happy to see the system being introduced at Richmond, having wrecked there in a Busch Series race in 2002. He suffered a broken back right-side rib and cracked two others on front in the incident - and missed three races. Furthermore, team-mate Jerry Nadeau was injured at Richmond in May and has yet to return to racing.

"The SAFER barrier is good news," Benson insisted, "I know NASCAR has been working on it pretty hard and I'm glad they are far enough along to where they think it's time to install it at Richmond. Obviously, we all hope it works and makes the sport a little bit safer.

"Richmond is a great track and if this barrier works like I think it will, everyone in our sport will benefit. We hit the wall at the short tracks just as hard as we hit the wall at the bigger tracks, so I hope we have the SAFER barrier at all of our tracks soon."

Benson has no problem with returning to Richmond, despite his accident there, and is hoping for a good run in his Valvoline Pontiac this weekend.

"I have always liked going to Richmond, it's a great race track," he explained, "It has two grooves and you can race all over the place. I've said before and I still say
Richmond might be the best show we put on for everyone all season.

"The place is a lot of fun for the drivers, the fans like it because its close short-track racing where you can pass - and I think most of our crew guys like the race
because they don't have to fix a lot of wrecked race cars like we do at Bristol!"

If Benson is to run well this weekend, the #10 team will have to find a cure for the problems that afflicted the Valvoline car earlier in the year.

"Last spring we ran okay, but not like we wanted to," Benson admitted, "I hope it will be better Saturday night. We are getting better and better of late. We weren't showing all that we had at Darlington and got caught up in somebody else's wreck, but I think we had top-15s in the last three ovals. We'd like to do better than that
on Saturday night."

The team will go to Richmond bolstered by the knowledge that Benson's crew chief James Ince has already engineered a winning car in the past week. Ince is celebrating a championship for his late model dirt car company, as Justin Wells won the IMCA Dirt Late Model title last week in a chassis built by James Ince Motorsports.

"The company is about four or five years old but, until last year, we were just a parts and components business," the proprietor explained, "Then I decided we wanted
to design and build our own dirt late model chassis.

"Since this was a start-up operation, we only sold about eight cars - and one of them was to Justin Wells, who was running in the IMCA late model division. He was a young kid that wasn't getting a lot of help, and we saw a lot of potential. Turns out he goes out and wins the championship. I think, combined with the other drivers, our cars had about 20 victories. That's pretty rewarding. We are pretty excited.

"This is an all Missouri operation. The short tracks are what I grew up on and I'm proud of that background. We have our own dirt team. My brother drives for me and I'm
sure some day, when I'm not in Winston Cup, it's where I plan to go back to and enjoy life. Racing is what I do and it's what I love."

Johnny Benson will be hoping some of that drive, love and success rubs off on Saturday.