MARTINSVILLE, V.A. (October 20, 2003) – With a little over 100 laps remaining in the Subway 500, the lapped car of John Andretti drove up into the No. 54 National Guard/Subway Ford. The collision on circuit number 385 sent car 54 home early, ending a chance for a top 25-finish or better. As a result, Bodine was forced to settle for 40th place. 

"John (Andretti) just turned up,” said Bodine who started the race in the back of the field after losing his back-up car in a final practice crash. “I’m not going to blame John for this. I really think his spotter never told him I was out there. Whoever the spotter is didn't want to hear anything about dropping back on the restart to allow one lap down cars to drive up in front of them. My spotter asked his spotter to work with us and he wanted nothing to do with it.  It’s just a common driver courtesy. They were five laps down. They didn’t need to be up there holding everyone else back. They were obviously going to be difficult about it and finally NASCAR told them to get out of the way.”

At the time of the incident, Bodine had turned his day around going from 43rd place to 25th. The driver was being patient at a track known for crumpling up a ton of sheet metal.  

“We really weren’t sure what kind of a car we were going to have today,” remarked the driver who was starting his 200th career  Winston Cup race in the Subway 500. “We only had a chance to run a few laps in happy hour and that was to shake down the car for comfort and safety purposes. This car was built the same way as our primary car but that’s never a guarantee that they’ll react exactly the same way.”

Fortunately, the back-up car was handling the same way. Bodine radioed in to Crew Chief Gary Cogswell in theng laps that the car was tight through the middle of the corners and tight off of the throttle. A series of pit stops were ordered to fix the National Guard/Subway car on laps 56, 66, 80, 107, 123, 138, 180, 230, 231, 275, and 355. Each time, car 54 was getting better and better.  By lap 300, it had broke into the top 25.

“I was just biding my time because we had some close calls early on in the race,” said Bodine. “It’s just too bad that all of this had to happen. It’s unfortunate for my advertisers, The National Guard and Subway. We are going home with two wrecked cars. It’s the last short-track race of the year and this is not what we wanted.”

Jeff Gordon went on to dominate Martinsville … literally. He led 311 of 500 laps and is the first driver since Fred Lorenzen in 1964 to win both Martinsville races from the pole in the same year. 

Official ResultsWC -- StandingsWC 
Read More About The Event:  AP Story -- Lap by Lap 
 

By: Traci Hultzapple
Senior Account Manager – BelCar Racing - No. 54 National Guard Taurus
Cox Marketing Group / Mooresville, NC  28117