| FORT WORTH, Texas (April 6, 2002) When it rains it pours, and that's
exactly what happened when the NASCAR Busch Series and the No. 92 Excedrin
Racing team traveled to the Texas Motor Speedway for the running of the
O'Reilly 300 last Saturday. Todd Bodine drove the Excedrin Chevrolet
to a 30th place finish in the rain-shortened event.
"We had some problems today on pit road," said Bodine following the
race. "We weren't at the top of our game, but this is one of the best pit
crews that I have ever worked with and it's not something that will happen
very often. They are still a relatively young group of guys and will
learn from this and move on. We had an unbelievable car though and
with the rain, just ran out of time. That's what we need to focus
on."
Bodine lined up in 17th place on the starting grid for Saturday's race
after posting a speed of 190.288 miles per hour around the 1.5-mile oval
during qualifying on Thursday afternoon. Rain showers postponed the
start of the event for nearly four hours before the race eventually got
underway late Saturday afternoon.
As soon as the green flag finally flew, Bodine began his move towards
the front of the field. When the first caution flag of the afternoon
occurred at lap two Bodine had already picked up two spots. He drove
the Excedrin Chevrolet Monte Carlo into the top-10 on lap 17 and then informed
crew chief Tony Liberati that the car was tight off the corners.
Bodine was in eighth place when NASCAR threw a competition caution at lap
42 giving teams the option to check tire wear. Liberati called Bodine
into the pits on lap 43 and the crew changed all four tires, filled the
car with fuel and made a wedge adjustment in an effort to loosen up the
car in the corners.
Bodine was running in the top-10 when he radioed to his crew that he
felt a vibration. At a track as fast as Texas Motor Speedway, Liberati
and Bodine thought it best to not take any chances and Bodine brought the
car into his pit stall for an unscheduled green flag pit stop on lap 83.
The team changed all four tires, but went one lap down in the process.
Unfortunately, there was a problem with a lug nut and Bodine was forced
to make another pit stop the very next lap. He lost another lap and
returned to the track
in 33rd.
The Excedrin Chevrolet was one of the fastest cars on the track in the
following laps. What proved to be the final caution flag of the day came
out on lap 108 and Bodine drove onto pit lane for four tires and fuel.
The Excedrin crew picked up two spots on pit road and returned to the track
in 30th place. Rain had threatened the entire event and finally began to
fall steadily, forcing NASCAR to throw the red flag and end the race after
the completion of only 116 of the scheduled 200 laps.
"This was a great racecar," said Bodine following the event. "We had
an off-day in the pits and that hurt us, of course, because this was easily
a top-five car. Looking on the bright side though, we go to a lot
of tracks that are a lot like this one and to know that we have this good
of a car to take to them is really great for us and really bad for our
competition."
The NASCAR Busch Series heads to Nashville (Tenn.) Superspeedway
this week for the running of the Pepsi 300. Qualifying for the race
will take place on Friday, April 12 at 12:00 PM-CT. The event will be broadcast
live on MRN Radio and FX television at 3:00 PM-CT.
For more Excedrin Racing information log onto www.excedrin.com. Excedrin
is a family of non-prescription pain relievers for safe and effective pain
relief for a range of headache types. Excedrin is produced by Bristol-Myers
Squibb, a leading diversified worldwide health and personal care company,
whose principle businesses are medications, nutritionals and medical devices.
For more information on Herzog Jackson Motorsports, Reggie Jackson and
Todd Bodine please visit www.hjmotorsports.com, www.reggiejackson.com and
www.todd-bodine.com. |