“You’ve got to get the balance right,” said Benedict. ”You’ve got to make power. You’ve got to read the track. You have to have half a dozen things all line up and be right to make a winning pass.”
He bested a field that included last year’s winner Todd Feiss of Lawrenceburg, Ind., still driving the “Sno’ Farmer Extreme.” Feiss’s winning pull last year was only 305 feet by comparison. For Benedict, whose aptly named “Blown Centless” has been plagued with mechanical troubles, this was his best performance of the year.
“This is a new tractor for 2010,” said Benedict, whose wedge-framed vehicle features three blown Chevy 572 motors. “It’s working good for us. I had a little trouble in the beginning with motors. I even got a broke motor tonight. Everything’s clicking. Before, it was stressful. It kept breaking and I had to work on it after every pass.”
Benedict was the fourth driver in his class to make a pass, right after Feiss.
“It helps if you’re in the back of the class,” said Benedict. “You can make adjustments according to what you see tractors in front of you do. I don’t mind being test took (the first driver to make a run) but I like to watch a couple of tractors run so I can make adjustments.”
