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Benson Earns 5th Trucks Win

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The Associated Press

Published: October 19, 2008

MARTINSVILLE, Va. - Johnny Benson passed Ron Hornaday Jr. with 46 laps to go and won the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at Martinsville Speedway on Saturday.

The victory, Benson's fifth of the season, allowed him to go from 39 points behind Hornaday for the series lead to 65 points ahead when Hornaday ran out of gas with three laps to go.

Hornaday, who started on the pole, had led every lap until Benson got underneath him in Turns 3 and 4 on the 0.526-mile oval. Hornaday wound up 29th, while Kevin Harvick, his truck owner, also ran out of gas before the finish and dropped from second to 15th.

The victory in the Kroger 200 was the first of Benson's career at Martinsville.

FORMULA ONE: Championship leader Lewis Hamilton of McLaren secured the pole position for the Chinese Formula One Grand Prix, earning a prime chance to secure the title before the last race in Brazil.

Hamilton will be the 2008 champion if he finishes on the podium today and gets six points more than Ferrari's Felipe Massa and BMW's Robert Kubica fails to win the race. Hamilton has 84 points, Massa has 79 and Kubica 72.

Renault's Fernando Alonso will start fourth.

That sets the stage for a sprint to the first corner, in which all drivers will be mindful of the chaos of the opening turn at last week's Japanese Grand Prix.

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