MILWAUKEE – Superstitious men take the truck that had won two races at the Milwaukee Mile, pack it away in a safe place and roll it out only on the third weekend of June.

Johnny Benson and Trip Bruce aren’t superstitious.

They cut that truck up.

It’s rebuilt and back in the rotation at Bill Davis Racing, but Benson, the two-time defending race winner, will drive a different Toyota Tundra on Friday night in the Camping World 200 in pursuit of his third consecutive NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series victory at the Mile.

This one, Benson and his crew chief Bruce insist, will be better.

“If we did go there and didn’t win, you could say it was the wrong thing to do, but I don’t believe it is,” said Benson, the series point leader.

“That’s what you have to do. You have to make sure you stay on top of the changes that are going on and try to keep up with the competition, because the competition is going to catch up with you if you don’t keep moving along.”

Benson did his best to run away from the competition last year, leading 96 of the 200 laps and beating Ron Hornaday Jr. by nearly a second. In 2006, Benson made his move in the final quarter of the race and topped Mike Bliss by a comfortable 2 seconds.

Sure, the truck was part of that, said Bruce, who decided later last summer that the truck needed updating. But he’s glad to share the credit with his driver.

“He commented to me he knew exactly what he wanted to feel and how if on this part of the racetrack it feels like this, then we’re good,” Bruce said of race day 2007. “That’s a tribute to him.”

Benson will try to find the same feel during a practice from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. today before qualifying at 5:30 and the race at 8.

The track surface will have changed in a year, the tires will be different and, of course, he will be driving a whole new truck which, if it performs as expected, should come off the corners even quicker.

“You have to definitely go by what you’ve learned in the time span that’s gone by because things change,” Benson said. “Even though the setup is still really, really close to it, it definitely has some changes just because of the tire differences.”

Benson, 44, spent eight seasons in what is now Sprint Cup before settling into the Craftsman Truck Series with Davis in 2006. Since then he has won nine times, but Milwaukee is the only place he has won twice.

Something about the place works for Benson.

In four truck starts and three in what is now the Nationwide Series, Benson has finished outside the top 10 only twice.

, and he also won an American Speed Association stock-car race in 1992.

“It’s just a nice short track, a flat track that I enjoy racing on,” Benson said, struggling to explain his success.

“Whether it’s been an ASA car or whether it’s been a truck, a Busch car, a Nationwide car, whatever, we’ve always run good there. We haven’t always had the finishes that we’ve wanted because of a mechanical issue or something like that. I guess it just fits the style that I like.”

Regardless of his results on this side of the lake, the Michigan native doesn’t want to be remembered as a one-track specialist. Benson has won at tiny Bristol Motor Speedway, the oddly shaped Gateway International Raceway and the wide-open Michigan International Speedway, too.

“Johnny performs well everywhere,” Bruce said. “He has a Cup mentality in his approach to races. He understands patience. He knows it’s not decided on Lap 50.

“He makes the right moves.”

Will bringing a different truck to Milwaukee will be a good move? Benson hopes to prove so on Friday night.