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Ward Burton
Guest
Veteran will concentrate on one series for rest of 2003
LOUDON, N.H. -- Family considerations caused Todd Bodine to give up his solid quest for the 2003 NASCAR Busch Series championship -- and he doesn't regret it one bit.
Bodine's commitment to family was never more apparent than when he helped a safety worker lift his brother, fellow Winston Cup driver Brett Bodine, out of Brett's crushed car at Michigan last month.
Todd has repeatedly stated how much winning a NASCAR championship would mean to him -- and he had a solid shot, sitting sixth in the points coming into last weekend's race, with an option to drive Evans Motorsports' No. 7 Chevrolet for the rest of the season.
But that goal paled in comparison to the quiver in his daughter, Ashlyn's voice.
"It's a no-brainer," Bodine said Sunday morning at New Hampshire International Speedway. "Every night when I talk to her on the phone she says, 'When are you coming home? I miss you.'
"That's really hard. There's a lot more to life than driving race cars and that made it pretty easy."
Coming into the New England 200 weekend, it seemed like working out any contractual difficulties between Evans Motorsports and Herzog Jackson Motorsports was the biggest difficulty Bodine had.
"Everything worked out and I was going to drive the 7," Bodine said. "Kimberly-Clark was all for it, and Joe (Nemechek, Evans' partner) and the guys on the team were all for it.
"I just made the decision that I want to concentrate on the (Winston) Cup car and make it better but the bottom line was, I wasn't spending enough time with my daughter, and that's important to me."
Up through the New Hampshire weekend, Bodine had jumped through numerous hoops to maintain full programs in both of NASCAR's top series.
Compounding the difficulty of having to be virtually at two race shops, or in two garage areas, at once through the first 18 Winston Cup races and 19 Busch Series events, are questions of the most difficult kind, from a young child that misses her daddy.
"The last three weeks I've been home, like three days," Bodine said. "I finally said, 'Enough is enough.' I was getting burned out."
Along with being away from his wife, Lynne and their little girl, Bodine was also troubled by his Herzog Jackson Busch team suspending operations after the Daytona race earlier this month.
Bodine had been committed to the group, led by crew chief Tony Liberati and, even though he had to work out any issues between HJM and Evans Motorsports. In the end, family won out.
"The next few weeks were going to be tough, with the travel," Bodine said. "If it was the 92 team and we were still racing all together it would have been a different story.
"But to start with another new team, and for me and Wally (Rogers, crew chief) to have to learn each other and the team learn me, it was just going to be hard. Mentally I'm really burned out on it."
"After all the ups and downs we've gone through all season, it wore on me and I just decided that was enough."
Bodine and Nemechek both said there was a possibility that Bodine, who led the Busch Series standings for nine weeks earlier this season with the HJM car, which has battled sponsorship woes all year, might drive for them in selected races later this season.
But Bodine said he would not do any more full-time Busch Series racing this season, even if the Herzogs were able to obtain full sponsorship.
"I don't want to do that," Bodine said. "If I could do Charlotte and maybe some of the combination races that are easier to do -- some of the better races, I'd do something like that.
"But to go back full-time, I really don't want to do it."
Bodine said he had not discussed this aspect of his decision with HJM's principals, but that he had other options.
"Frank Cicci has a team now and I'm kinda part of that deal," Bodine said of the owner for whom he scored his first career Busch Series victory. "We're trying to get some stuff together to maybe run five or six races, in addition to the program Mike (McLaughlin) has over there.
"If that happens then we'll go that direction, but right now it's really a relief to make that decision and make it final."
Bodine stressed that he had not neglected his Winston Cup operation, but that being able to concentrate on it would help him to improve a season that has seen BelCar Racing finish out of the top 10 in all 19 races.
"It's a situation where I can give it a lot more effort being at the shop," Bodine said. "Where you've got two teams you have to deal with and two cars you have to understand and help develop set-ups for -- it's a lot less pressure and a lot less time-consuming to concentrate on one car.
"Hopefully it will pay off here."
Nemechek said the decision sent him back to what he called "Plan A."
"That was for me, and Greg (Biffle) and possibly Todd to drive it some," Nemechek said of his plans for the 7. "There's three races that are conflicting so that's what we have to work out."
Those events are this weekend at Pikes Peak, at Indianapolis Raceway Park and later in the season at Memphis.
"We're here to win races," Nemechek said. "This car can win races. At Pikes Peak, more than likely one of the unemployed drivers out there right now will be in the car -- we're talking between two of them right now."
Ironically, on the initial entry list released by NASCAR Competition, Bodine was listed as the driver of the No. 7 Chevrolet.
