Bodine off to a hot start in 2008
By Jared Turner - Staff Writer
Friday, March 07, 2008
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Jamie Squire / Getty Images
Todd Bodine celebrates winning the Chevy Silverado 250 at Daytona International Speedway in February.
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It may be little wonder Todd Bodine is off to such a hot start to the 2008 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series campaign. The fire in his belly apparently is burning a little hotter coming off what he considers a less-than-stellar 2007.
“We were disappointed in our performance in that we didn’t run as well as we should have every race,” said the Germain Racing driver, who enters tonight’s American Commercial Lines 200 at Atlanta Motor Speedway trailing standings leader Kyle Busch by 20 points. “You’re going to have bad luck, you’re going to have some things go wrong, but performance is what we strive for, and that’s the one thing that you can control. And we did miss it a couple times and had some bad runs, and that is not acceptable to any of us at Germain Racing.”
While Bodine won two races en route to a fourth-place points finish last season, the overall result was a dip from his performance a year earlier, when the veteran driver won three times and held the points lead from the season’s fifth race to the finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
Looking back, Bodine and crew chief Mike Hillman Jr. now trace the team’s struggles to their strategy at the end of 2006. To help ensure that Bodine finished each race down the season’s stretch run as he chased his first title, Hillman admittedly went conservative on the setups in his driver’s Toyota Tundra.
While the strategy accomplished its short-term mission — Bodine claimed the crown by 127 points over Johnny Benson — it may have hurt the team last season when Bodine finished in the top-15 just three times over the final nine races.
“At the end of ’06, we kind of just stayed with the basics. There were times when we’d make changes to our vehicle that we knew we weren’t going to be able to win the race but we were going to run in the top five and stay consistent with our points lead,” Hillman Jr. said. “At the beginning of ’06, I think we were a little ahead .and everybody else caught up.”
Driver and crew chief don’t think that Germain Racing’s decision to enter the Chemung, N.Y., native in five Busch Series races last season hampered the truck series effort.
“It didn’t hurt it at all,” said Bodine, adding that he doesn’t know if the team will procure the sponsorship for him to make any cameo Nationwide or Sprint Cup Series starts this season. “They did a great job in making sure that nothing from that Busch car interfered with the truck program. If there was something to do with the trucks and they were working on the Busch car, they put that aside, and we did what we had to on the truck. There was no way that it interfered.”
Bodine's team re-examined itself over the winter and produced a package that has been stellar right from the start of 2008, beginning at Daytona, where Bodine claimed arguably the series’ biggest prize besides a title. In 16 previous years of competition divided between NASCAR’s three national series at The World Center of Racing, he had never gone to Victory Lane.
That’s history now.
“To win at Daytona is every driver’s dream,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if you’re driving a Cup car or if you’re driving a go-kart. … That’s the one thing you want on your resume when you’re done. To finally get it was pretty incredible.”
Bodine’s trip to Daytona didn't go untarnished, however.
He was docked 25 driver points, and team owner Stephen Germain lost 25 owner points after NASCAR officials discovered a bed panel-lowering device on the eventual winning truck during prequalifying inspection. Hillman Jr. was fined $10,000, suspended four races and placed on probation through the end of the year. Bodine believes the sanctions, which cost him the early-season points lead, were too harsh.
“We pretty much got the death penalty for jaywalking,” he said.
The team appealed the ruling last week. Hillman Jr. said Germain Racing isn’t lobbying NASCAR to overturn the penalty, just reduce it. He served the first race of his suspension two weekends ago at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif., where Bodine placed second to Busch. Hillman’s father, Germain Racing general manager Mike Hillman Sr., called the shots atop the No. 30 pit box and will do the same at Atlanta.
“Mike Sr. is who taught Mike Jr., and Senior and myself have always had that relationship and that factor that you look for between crew chief and driver,” Bodine said. “ … For him to step in there and do [his son’s] job for a few weeks, we’re not missing a beat at all.”
Bodine doesn’t plan on getting beat much in 2008.
“I’m very optimistic and excited about the team and the direction it’s going right now,” he said.
- Mentioned Drivers:
- Todd Bodine
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