ROCKINGHAM, N.C. - Johnny Benson's Pontiac had to be pushed there yesterday by a wrecker after the Pop Secret 400 at North Carolina Speedway, but he still made it to Victory Lane for the first time in his Winston Cup career.

Benson ran down the leaders over a final 100-lap green-flag run and held off a furious challenge from Mark Martin during the final laps to get his first win in 226 career starts.

"This crew has deserved a win for a long, long time," Benson said. "We've been close I don't know how many times."

Known as the best driver to never win a Winston Cup race, Benson led the final 28 laps but had to battle Martin over the final dozen laps.

Martin, in the thick of the Winston Cup championship chase, was racing for the win and several times drove his Ford onto the bumper of Benson's car.

When he couldn't bump Benson out of the way, he tried to pass him in the lower grooves of the racetrack.

None of it worked, and Benson, 39, beat him to the finish line by 0.261 of a second to become the fifth first-time winner this season.

"I'm glad for Johnny; he's a whale of a race car driver," Martin said. "It's a shame it's taken him this long, but I'm happy for him."

"I put a lot of pressure on him there at the end and he made no mistakes. That's what I was hoping for, but I was not expecting it because I've raced Johnny a lot."

Afterward, Martin's No. 6 Ford failed inspection because the left-front springs did not meet the minimum number of coils. NASCAR will punish the team next week, and the standard penalty this season has been a deduction of 25 championship points.

That would be a huge blow to Martin, who sliced Tony Stewart's lead to 87 points.

Kurt Busch, who came into the event on a two-race winning streak, led 105 laps but faded and finished third.

Benson knew he had fuel issues to contend with late in the race: Crew chief James Ince told him there was a chance he could run out of gas. And he did - but it happened during his celebratory doughnuts along the front-stretch.

"James said it was going to be within a half of a lap, but he just didn't know what side of the finish line it's on," Benson said.

"It was a long time coming, Johnny Benson," Ince radioed him as he crossed the finish line.

That's true. Two races ago, in fact, Benson had to settle for a heartbreaking second-place finish to Busch at Martinsville, a race in which Benson elected not to bump his way into the lead near the end.

This time, he worked past Martin and then Busch after the final caution, taking the lead on lap 366 in a 393-lap race. Martin got past Busch to take second and then moved in close to Benson's rear bumper several times.

Stewart struggled for much of the day. He did manage to rally from outside the top 30 yesterday to finish 14th, and after another tough day for Jimmie Johnson, it may be down to a two-man race with two races left.

"We knew we had a wheel loose, and when it was loose, it destroyed the studs, and we could never tighten the wheel back up," Johnson said. "So we had to come in and change the whole hub assembly.

"I'm disappointed. We had a good car and were going to have a solid day. Stewart was struggling. Mark Martin had a great day, but we would have definitely made up some ground. It's just one of them deals."

Stewart was angry when he left his Pontiac, stopping only to say the car was the worst he had ever driven.

"Most of the day, he kept his head and did a great job," crew chief Greg Zipadelli said. "He did what he had to do. We didn't do as good of a job as we probably needed to do adjusting early. We tried, but everything we did was wrong."

Johnson had a loose wheel that dropped him 12 laps down and he finished 37th. He fell from 150 to 219 points behind Stewart.

Ryan Newman, the rookie who started from the pole, led two times for 41 laps but finished 23rd. Rusty Wallace, his teammate, finished 27th.

Wallace has two more chances to win this season and stretch his streak to 17 straight years with at least one victory. That would break the NASCAR record he shares with Ricky Rudd.

The Associated Press contributed to this article.