WEST ALLIS, Wis. — In the previous 12 runnings of the Toyota Tundra Milwaukee 200 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at The Milwaukee Mile, no driver had won consecutive races — that is, until Friday night.
Driving the No. 23 Toyota, Johnny Benson chased down polesitter and Bill Davis Racing teammate Mike Skinner to take the lead on lap 104 and led all but one of the final 96 laps en route to his first triumph of the season.
Although Benson led throughout the final stages of the race, he had to hold off a fast-closing  Ron Hornaday, Jr. to get the trophy.
Hornaday started 14th but found himself 24th on lap two after contact with Willie Allen sent Hornaday spinning through turn four. Hornaday stayed composed and subsequently put on a clinic, racing his way into the top 10 by lap 70 and cracking the top five on lap 130.
Jack Sprague’s spin on lap 194 set up a four-lap dash to the checkered flag and put Hornaday, the master of restarts, right on Benson’s tail.
Benson knew exactly what he needed to do to hold off Hornaday.
“I knew Ron would know exactly when I was going to go,” Benson said. “NASCAR tells you where that restart point was, and he was going to be all over me. He’s good on those restarts, but I think we are pretty good too when we need to be. I got a good start and didn’t give him the outside.”
While Benson was celebrating his second-consecutive victory at Milwaukee, Hornaday was thinking about what could have been for the second-straight year. He finished second to Benson last year as well.
“I don’t know if I came down on Willie (Allen) or not, but we got turned around,” Hornaday said. “I just had to use (my truck) up too much coming through the pack to catch (Benson). The brakes were gone by about lap 70. On the last restart, I was doing all I could do and locking the brakes up trying to catch him.”
The most controversial incident of the night involved 2005 series champion Ted Musgrave and rookie Kelly Bires. Musgrave expressed his displeasure with Bires by driving into the side of his No. 21 Ford after the two made contact with the wall. Bires was done for the night due to the damage sustained in the original accident, while Musgrave was parked for the night by NASCAR officials.