MARTINSVILLE, VA. (April 13, 2003) – With 250 laps to go in Sunday’s Virginia 500, the Guard car’s day took an unfortunate turn after sustaining sheet metal damage to the left front side of the car during a restart. The incident forced the No. 54 driver, Todd Bodine, to come onto pit road to fix the damage under green-flag conditions. On a track that measures just a half-mile in length, a repair under green is costly. As a result, the National Guard team finished in a disappointing 37th place.

“This is not where we want to be,” said Bodine after the race. “This is the first time we’ve ever raced this car and from the time we unloaded, it was a real handful. It just didn’t want to react favorably to the numerous adjustments we made throughout the weekend. We are going to go over the car with a fine-tooth comb to understand why it didn’t want run and fix it. These things happen, but it doesn’t mean it’s acceptable to us.”

After a disappointing qualifying lap on Friday, the National Guard team started the 500-lap event in the 41st position. Bodine opted to patiently ride out theng laps to allow the field to get settled in and it was during this time that the No. 54 driver knew he was in for a long day.

“A lack of track position put us at a deficit especially during the restarts,” continued Bodine. “The car just did not want to stick to the bottom of track. That’s what really hurt us. We weren’t too bad on the long runs. We were actually pretty good but by the time the car got up to speed, it was too late. We had lost too much track position to the leaders.”

The team made several attempts to fix the car during caution-flag conditions. The opportunities to come down pit road occurred on laps 80, 119, and 245. Bodine’s biggest area for improvement was the need for forward bite. A series of air pressure, track bar and wedge adjustments were made.  

“Checking our lap times, we could see that the car took some time to come in,” remarked Crew Chief Derrick Finley. “NASCAR’s timing and scoring had us running with the top 10 cars but our fast speeds came with about 30 or 40 laps left in a sequence. Cars that started back with us like Bobby Labonte and Dale Jarrett really took off from the beginning. That’s something that we desperately needed to do to keep up, but when we suffered the damage on lap 250, we had to come in to fix it to prevent a tire from going down. Pitting under green caused us to lose three laps and that put us behind even more.”

According to Bodine, “We started throwing even more things at the car to try to figure out what it wanted. We even tried some different adjustments to the shocks. The last part of the race became a test for us when we come back here in the fall. We’re going to figure this thing out. It’s a shame we had to have such a disappointing finish because all our efforts certainly do not reflect it.

“This weekend is an off weekend for us,” continued Bodine. “We are going to use this time to regroup and figure out what we have to do to work out of this deficit.”

Jeff Gordon and Bobby Labonte battled it out in the closing 50 laps when Gordon took the lead for good after giving Labonte a little “love tap.” It is Gordon’s first win of the season.

To Read More About Sunday’s Events: 
http://www.nascar.com/2003/news/headlines/wc/04/13/bc.car..nascar.virginia5.ap/index.html
http://www.nascar.com/2003/news/headlines/wc/04/13/blabonte_sider/index.html
http://www.nascar.com/2003/news/headlines/wc/04/13/dearnhardtjr_third/index.html

UNOFFICIAL RACE RESULTS:::::UNOFFICIAL POINTS STANDINGS:

Martinsville Images

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