From The Inside
by Todd Bodine-Staff Writer and Winston Cup Driver
08/22/2003

Hi Race Fans -

The NASCAR Winston Cup Series headed to Michigan International Speedway last weekend for our final outing at the two-mile oval. After a disappointing run in the spring, we headed back to the "Irish Hills" hoping to rebound and collect another top ten finish.

Like in the spring, when we unloaded the No. 54 National Guard Ford, we were not pleased with the car. It was tight, tight, tight, a battle that we have been facing for most of the season. Gary and I and the guys are really looking at our overall construction of our cars. We went to the wind tunnel on Wednesday and found some interesting numbers with our car and not necessarily to our advantage. So, we are looking at some different things. Our biggest challenge is to build cars with a good overall balance and we are not there yet. I think if we can straighten that out we will see a big difference in both our qualifying and race efforts.

Heading into Time Trials, we were remaining optimistic hoping that we would not be forced to take a provisional to make it into the starting grid, but we were slow, and still battling a handling condition and had to take a provisional. However, we were just happy to be in the field for the team and our sponsor National Guard.

In practice on Saturday, we were still a little off from what we recorded in time, but we were making adjustments that were going in the right direction. We knew if we kept working on the car, Sunday morning, we might have a decent chance for a good finish. However, the car was still tight thought out all of the remaining sessions.

At the start of the race, we were tight through the middle and really tight back to throttle. On the first stop under caution, we made air pressure and track bar changes. We put on four tires and I think the track bar put the car too on top of the track. Overall though, we were loose all the way through the corners, so Gary was adjusting the right way. We were getting close and we had a good 160 laps to figure it out.

Luck did not go our way deeper into the event, as we got collected into a vicious accident. I was all right. My knee is a little sore and my ankle is a little sore, but, other than that, I'm good. I was just one of those racing deals. I turned down and got under Kenny and was pulling in front of him, but I got Kurt pinched down a little bit and the air came off his spoiler and he got into me. That's one of those racing deals. If Kenny wasn't outside of me and I would have had some room to save it, we would have been all right. However, Kenny was right out there and when I moved up the track he got in the quarter panel and turned me right up into the wall and it was on from there.

It's a crying shame. We've struggled all weekend. This is the car we crashed testing at Indy. It was really fast there, but we crashed and fixed it. We came back here and struggled all weekend with it, but we made some changes this morning and the car was a lot better. Gary (Cogswell) made some adjustments and the car was really good right there. We were just working our way through. Kurt and me were coming up through there together and I was basically just following him. In that one instance he was down low and I got under Kenny and it was just one of those racing deals.

It was definitely one of the hardest wrecks that I have taken in my NASCAR career.

That's not the closest I've come to turning over, but I knew I was close to turning over when I looked out the windshield and the wall was going sideways. That was not fun. And then the fire, I didn't know if it was my car or what was going on. I didn't know Kenny was underneath me like that. It was a pretty hard hit when Kenny turned me up in the wall. I hit the wall at probably 180 miles an hour, but, fortunately, I've got a Lajoie seat and a HANS device and everything did its job. The only thing is I've got a sore knee and a sore ankle. That's racing. I'm not gonna blame Kurt. I was mad at him at first, but after seeing the replay I know it wasn't his fault. It was just one of those racing deals. Air came off his spoiler and he got into me. It's just one of those deals. It's a shame for our National Guard crew.

Any type of an accident puts a team behind. We are gunning for top 25 in points and we certainly took a hit today. It also is hard on the guys too. They've got a car to rebuild. I'm confident that we will be able to overcome this and bounce back; we've done it in the past.

The series heads back to our second Bristol race of the season, and I'm excited. It's an absolute blast to run at Bristol, but especially the night race. There really is nothing like it. The roar of the crowd and the intensity that night racing brings to a place like this is not only fun for the fans but also for the drivers. One of the ways I describe the place to people who ask is I compare it to riding a half-mile rollercoaster. It's hard to believe, but if you took a stopwatch to our straightaway times, you could easily clock us going about 4.5-seconds. It's just enough time for a driver to catch his breath.

What makes this track so much fun is it requires you to be on top of the wheel at all times. That's because you are constantly mixing things up with the frontrunners as well as lapped cars. Anything can happen at any given moment. What makes this race taxing is points. We are now hitting the home stretch and wrecks are bound to breakout as soon as the green flag is thrown. When the night is over, you hope to have a car that looks like it's in one piece and a decent points payday.

We're just looking to bounce back from our bad luck with the BELCAR Racing team and hopefully this weekend, we'll shock them all with an excellent run.

The NASCAR Winston Cup Series is ready to attack Bristol Motor Speedway this weekend. The green flag for the Food City 500 drops shortly after 7:30 PM EST, with live coverage on TNT beginning at 7:00 PM EST, with MRN radio joining at 7:00pm EST.

I am hoping for a great race on Saturday night and hope that you will be keeping an eye on the National Guard Ford along with your favorite driver(s).

I'll talk to you next week and thanks for reading!
Todd Bodine

You can reach Todd Bodine at: tbodine@catchfence.com