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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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CURRENT NEWS
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
 Bristol,
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.
 On
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.
 In
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.
[Top]
Benny Gordon Edges Clay Rogers
for Bristol Win
 Press 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.
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.
[Top]
Bristol Notes & Quotes
Press Release (September 11, 2010)
USARacing.com, By Jimmy White
Bristol,
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.”
[Top]
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.”
[Top]
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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