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May 11, 2007
Johnny Benson Gets Himself Into Trouble
Turns out the guilty party who let a driver without a Nascar liscense take some laps in Johnny Benson's #23 truck during the evening session of testing at Charlotte last night was Johnny himself. Not a wise decision. And Bill Davis isn't very happy about that.
“I didn’t know anything about it. I didn’t even know his name. I had no earthly idea that he was driving the truck. I guess he’s a friend of Johnny’s, Johnny’s mentor.None of our people knew about it. I mean, obviously, the crew chief and those guys did. Nobody in management knew anything about it.”
I have to ask if the crew chief knew about it, why didn't he stop it from happening? Nascar made Johnny go to Darlington for a chat, and that they made him go to a track where he wasn't racing indicates to me that they were extremely displeased - with good reason. Davis said,
“Oh, I think there will be some repercussions, certainly. That’s about against the rules as anything I’ve seen happen.”
The question is whether Davis is referring to penalties that Nascar is likely to assess the team, or what he's going to do to Johnny and his team for such a major violation of the rules. I can't imagine him releasing Johnny for this - after all, Johnny's 7th in points. But it seems to me that Davis is unlikely to let this go without some sort of message sent that his drivers and their teams can't let just anyone get behind the wheel of their cars or trucks. I would assume at the very least that Johnny's going to have to pay the cost to repair or replace the truck.
Posted by silverdsl at May 11, 2007 10:00 PM