Driver of the #66 Samuel Metals Ford Fusion
USARacing Series Champion - 2005 & 2008
USARacing Miller Lite Rookie of the Year - 2003 

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Draft Opens at Daytona: Gordon, McCumbee Lead Way at Top of Second Day's Open Test Chart

January 12, 2011

ARCAracing.com

 

(DAYTONA BEACH, Fla.) - With under one hour remaining in the second day of ARCA Racing Series presented by Menards testing at Daytona International Speedway, five cars set out to draft together, in turn creating the highest speeds seen yet this week.

Benny Gordon, a NASCAR Nationwide Series driver looking to make the first start of his ARCA Racing Series career in February 12's Lucas Oil Slick Mist 200 at Daytona, topped the chart by turning his 49th of 58 laps in the No. 09 Enfinger Motorsports Ford in 48.414 seconds (185.897 mph), just edging the 48.427-second (185.847 mph) lap from Chad McCumbee (pictured), his 16th of 25 afternoon laps in the No. 1 Andy Belmont Racing Ford.

Drafting was allowed this afternoon for the first time in two days of testing at the 2.5-mile superspeedway.

"We have, obviously, a really good car right now. We did a lot of qualifying runs the first thing this morning and the car's pretty decent by itself, but the car's extremely fast in the draft. We hung around that top 10 in qualifying trim and qualifying runs, but in the draft it was really good," Gordon said.

 

DAYTONA INT'L SPEEDWAY TEST - 1/11-13/11
ARCA RACING SERIES PRESENTED BY MENARDS
JANUARY 12, 2011, AFTERNOON SESSION


     CAR #   DRIVER               MAKE    TIME      SPEED
1    09        Benny Gordon       Ford     48.414   185.897
2    1        Chad McCumbee    Ford     48.427   185.847
3    41b     Ty Dillon              Chevy   48.431   185.831
4    82       Sean Corr            Ford     48.432   185.828
5    77       Joey Licata, Jr.     Dodge   48.473   185.670
 


Benny Gordon Gets His Groove Back

Press Release (September 11, 2010)

 

USARfans.com

By Lou & Cheryl Lauer, http://www.USARfans.com

 

USARFans.com PhotoBristol, TN.  In victory lane at Bristol Motor Speedway tonight, race winner Benny Gordon said "You have no idea how much we needed this. This has been the worst racing season of my life." Hounding race leader and co-points leader Caleb Holman during the middle of the race and then roughing it up a bit with the other points leader Clay Rogers for the lead at the end of the race, Gordon drove his #66 Samuel Metals Ford up the ramp in turn three and onto the roof of the building to celebrate his 32nd win of his Pro Cup career and make his 2010 season just a little bit better.

He had some work to do to get there. Gordon started the American Freedom Spectacular 200 from 16th position after qualifying was rained out and the field lined up on points, but by lap 25 he was in the top 5. Over the next 50 laps he moved through the field to catch race leader Caleb Holman's #75 Food Country Dodge. Gordon was pretty happy with his car. He was even happier after his pit crew put him into the race lead during pit stops on lap 86 when most teams pitted for fuel. Gordon held the lead until the next set of pit stops when teams took on their fresh tires for the race. When the race restarted at halfway, the 66 car was back in 6th position.

Differing pit strategies allowed A.J. Frank in his #56 Speedco ride to lead the race at halfway, but it did not take long for Holman's new Dodge clad machine to re-assume the lead and try to march away from the field. That's when Benny got his groove back - the high groove - and tracked down and hounded Holman lap after lap, running the high groove around the half-mile track, forcing Holman to alter his lower line and move up higher in front of the charging Gordon. Gordon's spotter got his driver motivated, telling him "he's driving a grocery cart, you're driving a lean, mean metal machine." It seemed to work. The crowd was treated to a great battle as the 75 and 66 cars were nose to tail, battling each other and lapped traffic for 50 laps or more. Then things changed.

USARFans.com PhotoOn lap 161, the right front tire of Holman's car blew, sending him into the turn two wall and bringing out the 6th and final caution of the race. Holman would lose several laps repairing his car and by race end, would also lose the co-points leader status. On the restart with 30 laps to go, Clay Rogers was back in the hunt and looking to take the wind out of Gordon's sails. On lap 170, Rogers dove low coming off turn 4 to take the lead over Gordon. Halfway through the same lap, Gordon nailed


 

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Rogers in the rear coming off turn 2, causing Rogers to lose control of his car down the backstretch. Most drivers would have wound up wrecked on the inside wall, but Rogers' skills allowed him to gather it up and keep it straight enough to stay in second position, and get a little mad.

Rogers would slowly begin to reel Gordon back in, both wanting to claim their second Bristol win. Meanwhile, the #65 of Brandon Ward and #56 of A.J. Frank quietly narrowed the gap and by lap 190, the top 4 cars were running nose to tail. But time ran out and the checkered flag flew. Gordon had gotten his groove back and claimed his first win of the year and only his 4th top 5, uncharacteristic for the previous series champion.

USARFans.com PhotoIn victory lane, Gordon was asked about the lap when he and Rogers 'got together'. He responded, "Got together? Heck, I nailed him. He'll just have to get over it. He's got a great car and has been dominating this year. I'm just returning the favor from other times over the years."

When the 2010 race season began at Gresham Motorsports Park, the race winner was Clay Rogers and he had this to say in Victory Lane, "I'm with a new race team, we're back in victory lane, and Benny Gordon is mad at me. Things are pretty normal." Perhaps these guys like racing each other harder than anyone else?

The race was slowed only 6 times for cautions flags. Most were single car events. A debris caution, a blown motor on the 14 of Ryan Heavner, smoke and a small fire under the hood of the #31 car of Logan Ruffin, a tire for the #05 of Tom Powers, and Holman's tire. The only multi-car caution occurred on lap 20 when NASCAR veteran Rick Wilson's #18 Food City car got into the snake-bitten #51 of Stephen Nasse in turn 2, ending the night for both cars and causing a few heated moments in the pits.

Chase Elliott drove his #9 Red Bull Ford into the fifth place position after a slow start to the race. The young driver learned the track and his car more as the race progessed and would up as the top rookie in the race. Rookie points leader Logan Ruffin lost several laps with his problems, which would up being a steering pump related problem. J.P. Morgan would stay out of trouble all night and bring his #23 car home in 6th position.

While the official results and points standings are not available yet, Rogers second place run, coupled with Holman's problems tonight should easily put Clay Rogers back into the points lead for the 2010 Championship with 3 races left in the season.
 

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Benny Gordon Edges Clay Rogers for Bristol Win

USARacing LogoPress Release (September 11, 2010)

USARacing.com, By Jimmy White

 

Bristol, TN.  Benny Gordon passed Clay Rogers with 29 laps to go win the American Freedom Spectacular 200 Saturday night at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway.

Gordon was leading when the race went green on lap 169 of the 200-lap event. One lap later Rogers made a daring pass to take the lead but on lap 171, Gordon returned the favor - with perhaps a bit of a nudge – off Turn 2. He beat Rogers to the checkered flag by three car lengths, officially measured at .398 seconds.


Benny Gordon & Crew in Victory Lane - Bristol Motor Speedway - 09/11/10

 

The move gave Gordon his first win of 2010 and left Rogers a bit miffed.

“First couple of laps it took a second for my tires to come in, I needed about two laps,” Gordon said. “He [Rogers] muscled his way through there pretty good. He didn’t touch me. He muscled his way through there. I’ve been off this year. I’ve had such a rough year and I finally had a good car under me and there was no way that was going to happen. I just lifted him up coming off the corner over there a little bit. The problem is, being a good driver like he is, you can do that to him and he won’t wreck it. That’s a problem in any series with knowing that the guy is not going to wipe it out. A lot of guys I would never touch like that. They would have wrecked. Clay saved it and then I ran as hard as I could so he didn’t get back to my bumper.”

Rogers, well, disagreed.

“I got by him, I cleared his clean on the restart, and coming here off of two, about quarter of the way down the back straightway, you know he had the momentum from the high side,” Rogers said. “You’re going to lose a little bit of momentum on the bottom but I passed him, cleared him. I didn’t even slide job him or nothing. He just had the momentum and rather than shooting to the inside ‘cause he knew he couldn’t complete the pass down there, he just picked my back tires about two foot off the ground and we about had a hell of a mess down here on the backstretch. That’s the way he races.”

Gordon said that while winning any race is special, parking his car in victory lane at Bristol could have huge sponsorship implications for him and his team.

“This weekend couldn’t have been any better for me because the CEO of Samuel Metals is here,” Gordon said. “He brought 20-25 people here so that’s huge. If he comes here and we wipe out and he leaves here discouraged, negotiations are a lot harder. We did the ride car yesterday. We thought it was going to rain out the ride car but it didn’t. We got everybody in and that’s all they could talk about last night was getting rides around Bristol. Then we come today and win and it justs strengthen the whole thing.”

Rounding out the top-five: Brandon Ward, A.J. Frank and Chase Elliott.

The USAR Pro Cup Series, formerly Hooters Pro Cup, is owned by Interstate Investment Group (IIG) and is based in Concord, N.C. For more information on USARacing, visit www.usarprocup.com.

 

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Bristol Notes & Quotes

Press Release (September 11, 2010)

USARacing.com, By Jimmy White

 

USARacing LogoBristol, TN.  Benny Gordon and the No. 66 Samuel Metals/VSI/Kuka Drink Ford Wins the Bristol American Freedom Spectacular 200.

NOTES:

- Gordon won for the first time in 10 starts this season, taking the checkered flag .398 seconds (approximately three car lengths) ahead of second-place Clay Rogers. Gordon claimed his fourth top-five and eighth top-10 in 2010.

- Gordon won for the 32nd time in 112 career starts and claimed his 64th top-five finish.

DID YOU KNOW?

 

With his victory at Bristol, Gordon has now won at least one USARacing Pro Cup Series race every season since 2003 (EIGHT CONSECUTIVE seasons).

- Rogers grabbed his 10th top-five finish in 11 starts this season.

GORDON: ON RACING CALEB HOLMAN:

“I think we were pretty darn equal cars. I think if I have got in front of him when I got really close to him the car just got a little bit tight coming off the corner. If I could have squeezed in coming off the corner, on either corner, I had a run on him a couple of times but it was going to be awful dangerous to stick my nose out there and him come across me. I think that was the only way I was going to make the pass. I kinda was just biding my time, keeping the pressure on him to make something happen like it happened. If I didn’t keep that pressure on him he might not have kept on it as hard as he did, tire may have lasted. It was going to be a good battle, for sure, and I would have liked to have seen it play out but I ended up in another battle anyway.”

COMMENT ON RACING CLAY ROGERS HARD LATE IN THE RACE.

“First couple of laps it took a second for my tires to come in. I needed about two laps. He muscled his way through there pretty good. He didn’t touch me. He muscled his way through there. I’ve been off this year. I’ve had such a rough year and I finally had a good car under me and there was no way t hat was going to happen. I just lifted him up coming off the corner over there a little bit. The problem is, being a good driver like he is, you can do that to him and he won’t wreck it. That’s a problem in any series with knowing that the guy is not going to wipe it out. A lot of guys I would never touch like that. They would have wrecked. Clay saved it and then I ran as hard as I could so he didn’t get back to my bumper.”

YOU RACED CALEB HERE FOR THE WIN IN 2008.

“Yeah I was and my car was nowhere near as good. My car was hitting the track and early in the race my car was hitting the track again once we got going faster as the laps went on we got faster and faster. So I went up to the high side and got off the bumps in the middle of the track and then it quit hitting. That was the biggest reason why I was running the high side is ’cause it wasn’t scrubbing the speed. I finished second to him the last time we were here in Bristol and we won the year before that in 07.”

YOU SAID HERE ON THURSDAY THAT THE HIGH GROOVE WAS BETTER ONCE THE TIRES WORE OUT.

“We geared down a little bit, took a little gear out of the car and let it fly up top. I think I took like five laps of practice and my car was perfect. When they said it started raining I said ‘Good, because I have no idea what to do to this car. I said just leave it alone.’ That’s how good it was right out of the trailer. We didn’t really know that was going to work into our favor but we didn’t have the gear in it to get up off the corner off the bottom so just got up there against that wall and let it fly.”

HOW BIG IS WINNING HERE AT BRISTOL?

“It’s huge to win here. It’s huge to win anytime but obviously here is a great place. Bristol is the best place to go to in the world as far as racing goes. It’s big and it’s really big for me today because we’ve just struggled so bad this year and the financials are off and I’m way low on people and personnel and stuff. It’s been a struggle for me this year and for my guys to hang in there and then come here and get a win it’s really big.”

COULD WINNING TODAY HELP IN THE SEARCH FOR ADDITIONAL SPONSORSHIP?

 

“This weekend couldn’t have been any better for me because the CEO of Samuel Metals is here. He brought 20-25 people here so that’s huge. If he comes here and we wipe out and he leaves here discouraged, negotiations are a lot harder. We did the ride car yesterday. We thought it was going to rain out the ride car but it didn’t. We got everybody in and that’s all they could talk about last night was getting rides around Bristol. Then we come today and win and it justs strengthen the whole thing. We ran 10 Nationwide races last year and actually had some really good races but we struggled some too. That had them discouraged a little bit but absolutely, this turns the momentum around for me like nobody can believe.”

WHAT ARE YOUR USAR PRO CUP PLANS FOR THE BALANCE OF 2010?

“I don’t really know; I’d like to run some. I ve also got some developmental kids that are coming my way and I really want to run them. I really enjoy doing that. My long-term this year is I’d like to run maybe a couple, run a couple of those boys in the last few races, run some Nationwide next year and put some young fellas in these cars to come up through the ranks.”
 

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Great Balls of Fire

BMS Gives Fans Reasons to Rave in Saturday’s ‘Spectacular’ Show

 

Press Release (September 11, 2010)

TriCities.com

By Allen Gregory, www.tricities.com

 

Bristol, TN.  Caleb Holman appeared bound for a rare repeat at Bristol Motor Speedway.

After starting from the pole in the USARacing Pro Cup 200, the Abingdon driver dominated the first half of the race. Holman was fast down the straightaway, strong in the corners and quick out of the pits.

Then disaster struck on lap 163 in the form of a cut right front tire.

“What can you say? Stuff happens,” said Holman, who drives for Abingdon-based Henderson Motorsports. “We did everything perfect on the track and our boys had great pit stops. The car drove like a dream, right up until the tire popped and we hit the wall.”

Benny Gordon took advantage of Holman’s misfortune to win the featured event of the American Freedom Spectacular at BMS.

“It’s huge to win anytime, but Bristol is the best place in the world for racing,” Gordon said. “We’ve struggled so bad this year and our finances are off. For my guys to hang in there and then get this win, it’s really big.”

Gordon maneuvered around USAR points leader Clay Rogers with 29 laps remaining and then held on. Rogers finished second, with Brandon Ward, A.J. Frank and 15-year-old Chase Elliott rounding out the top five. Holman settled for an 11th place finish.

While Gordon celebrated his second career win at BMS, Rogers came away steaming from a bumping incident with Gordon on lap 171 after the two drivers swapped the lead.

“Benny has always been fast at this racetrack,” Rogers said. “When he has a car that he thinks he can win with, Benny turns it into a bulldozer and tries to bully everybody around. He passed everybody after we came off pit road and he ran Chase Elliott into the wall under caution.”

According to Rogers, Gordon has a reputation for being overly aggressive.

“I’ve been dealing with it for six years now,” Rogers said. “If you get sucked into a war of words with him, he just thrives on that. I’m glad [Gordon] won the race. Now, he can go buy himself another dirt late model.”

Gordon said the decisive struggle with Rogers was simply a case of hard racing.

“It took a couple of laps for my tires to come in, so Clay muscled his way through there pretty good. He didn’t touch me, but he muscled his way through there,” said Gordon, who finished second to Holman in 2008 at BMS and won in 2007. “I’ve had such a rough year, and I finally had a good car under me. I just lifted Clay’s car coming off the corner a little. Clay saved it, and then I just ran as hard as I could so he didn’t get back to my bumper.’’

Due to rain, no qualifying session was held and the starting field was set based off the points standings. Holman posted the fastest time in Saturday’s practice with a lap of 15.716 at 122.092 miles per hour. Rogers was second fastest at 15.991 in the 20 car field.

Holman led the first 85 laps, and then also controlled the race again from lap 104 to 163.

Gordon, who made 10 Nationwide Series starts last year, made repeated charges at Holman.

“That might have been what cut the tire because we kept getting higher and higher,” Holman said. “The higher you get on the track, the more trash you pick up. But, Benny was awfully good.”

While Gordon established a comfort zone around the high groove of the track, Holman’s car worked better on the low side.

“I honestly thought we had kind of a cakewalk until Benny got by Clay there early in the race,” Holman said. “I couldn’t let Benny get on the high side because he could take my line off the corner.”

 

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USARacing Series Champion 2005 & 2008

Northern Series Champion 2004, 2005, 2006 & 2008
USARacing Series Runner-Up 2003 & 2004
Miller Lite Rookie of the Year 2003


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