Catchfence

Last week, Todd and Janet Bodine faced one of the most intense and personal situations in life, losing a parent. For this week’s 11th chapter of the Bodine Family Travelogue, Todd wanted to pass on this message:

“My mom passed away on Friday night — the night before the race at Martinsville. And given that it happened fairly suddenly — 10 days before that Mom appeared to be virtually in perfect physical health — it made it a little hard to take.

“Two Sundays before we went to Martinsville, all of Mom’s vital signs were fine, but she started to feel badly. So my sister took her to get checked and she had to go into the hospital, finally, at the beginning of the week of the Martinsville race. In the end, honestly, we were glad that she didn’t spend a long time suffering.

“It’s one of those typical events in life that everyone goes through, but it doesn’t make it any easier for anyone. It makes you want to walk away from everything, to just surround yourself with the people who mean the most to you to sort out how you feel, to do what you need to do.

“For us, this past week has been a time to just privately deal with things in our own way. But as you know, with our Truck Series season in the middle of its most critical part, life can’t stop. We’re in Talladega this weekend to try to regain Victory Lane at a race we won with Germain Racing in October 2008 — because that’s what we do.

- NASCAR.com