PERSONAL PROFILE
	Spouse: Debbie Kids: Katelyn, Mikayla Hometown: Grand Rapids, MI Birthdate: June 27, 1963 Hobbies: Golf, Riding Harley Davidsons

Paint Johnny Benson with nothing but optimism coming into the 2001 season, when he will be reunited with crew chief James Ince and backed by a solid ownership group that includes the team's primary sponsor Valvoline.

Benson was cited by a NASCAR Online users' poll as being the biggest surprise of the 2000 season, and his performance in the season-opening Daytona 500 was the perfect entree. Benson, who started the season driving a pure white Pontiac for team owner Tim Beverley, nearly won the race.

Through a shaky sponsorship deal and the sale of the team, Benson and Ince's performance never faltered. He ended up 13th in the point standings with three top-5 and seven top-10 finishes, but no one did more with less than Beverley, Benson and Ince did. Benson twice finished second, to Rusty Wallace at Bristol and to Tony Stewart at Dover. The team was rewarded in Michigan in August when Valvoline announced its 2001 sponsorship deal, which included partial ownership of the team.

Benson, a native of Grand Rapids, Mich., starts his sixth Winston Cup season with Hendrick Motorsports engines under his car's hood. The organization, which is paired with the MB2 Motorsports Pontiacs of Ken Schrader, hopes it is enough to propel the 1995 Busch Series champion to his first top-10 championship finish in the Winston Cup Series, which would better his 11th place finish in 1997.

Benson, a former American Speed Association champion who came into the Winston Cup Series with owner Chuck Rider, was the victim of unrealized expectations with owner Jack Roush. It wasn't all bad for Benson at Roush Racing, where he toiled in 1998-99. He scored 12 top-10s in two seasons and managed a pair of front-row starts in his tenure. In addition, he piled up more than $1.5 million in prize money in his second season in the No. 26 Ford.

He is a three-time rookie of the year, winning the honor in the ASA ACDelco Challenge Series (1990), Busch Series (1994) and Winston Cup Series (1995).