Jennifer Long
02/03/09 05:11:18PM
@jennifer-long
Great article from SCENEDAILY.com!! Former Daytona 500 winner Geoff Bodine pumped up for season-opening raceBy Rea White - Associate Editor Tuesday, February 03,Geoff Bodine says he's excited to be heading back to Daytona International Speedway for the season-opening Daytona 500.After all, Bodine won the race in 1986, ran out of gas on the final lap there - with a 23-second lead after a fuel-mileage gamble - in 1987 and finished third in the race in 2002. So it's understandable that the 59-year-old might be eager to get back into action at the track.But Bodine is also caught up in the building of a new group. He'll head to the track with the Larry Gunselman-owned Gunselman Motorsports in a car that carries no sponsorship but with a team that Bodine feels is ready for the season. He'll share the ride with his brother, Todd Bodine, this season - the first time he can remember co-driving with one of his racing brothers.Geoff Bodine says that his team is representing the public, that it's a group of people who might not have jobs otherwise working to build something."Some of these race mechanics that have lost their jobs, with other teams shutting down and making their teams smaller, downsizing, so a team like Larry's, we're not funded with any kind of major sponsorship so his budget is low, but we're providing a job for some of these fellows that are out of work, which is a good thing," Bodine said in a phone interview Monday. "It looks like NASCAR doesn't have a full field of fully sponsored race cars, so we're going to be there, hopefully, filling that void of a full field, and we're having fun doing it."Bodine says that the team obviously hopes to garner sponsorship for the season, but he believes that it has to be at the track and in races before it can capture the attention of companies willing to be the primary backers of a Sprint Cup team.Bodine is also confident in the quality of people that the organization has building and working on its cars, as well as the Toyotas themselves. The group bought three that were used by Bill Davis Racing last season and three from Red Bull Racing."I'm very excited about this opportunity," he said. "I wish we were going there with sponsorship already on the car, but unless you're there, it's very hard to get a sponsor."Bodine has 570 Cup starts in his career, with 18 wins, 100 top-five and 190 top-10 finishes. He last drove a Cup car in 2004, when he competed in five races, and has not raced in one of NASCAR's new models.That doesn't concern him for now, though. He thinks that his past experience in different cars, and even in the NASCAR Truck series, should enable him to adjust to the car quickly. After all, he feels that's just what racers do."I've never driven one on the race track," he said of the new-model Cup car. "So far we haven't even started one up and driven around the parking lot. These things kind of remind me of trucks, and I'm familiar with driving in the Truck series. They have similarities to the old Cup cars, back in the late '80s, big boxy cars, that kind of driving technique I'm looking forward to getting in one and actually pushing the pedals down and going around the track."It's a challenge and a real race driver loves a challenge. I've driven a lot of race cars in my career and had to adapt to all those kinds of cars and different kinds of tracks, and fortunately I was able to do that, so I'm looking forward to this challenge and adapting to all the new technology and learning that and how to set them up. I haven't forgotten how to drive. The mental aspect of driving, strategy, when to make a move and when not to make a move, I really believe I haven't lost any reflexes, and I've been doing a lot of things to keep that going. I certainly think I haven't lost the desire. I think I have all that I need to do this again, I just need a few laps on the race track to learn these cars and all this new technology that's out there now."Helping with that will be his younger brother, the 2006 NASCAR Truck series champion who also has competed in the Cup ranks. Although he last drove in the Cup series in 2006, Todd is up on the latest technology, Geoff Bodine says, and can aid the team in the setup of the car. So are the crew members and engineers the team has hired, men who have been working on this car for the past couple of seasons as it was developed and fine-tuned.For now, Geoff Bodine has high expectations entering the 2009 season - and is looking forward to working closely with his brother and building the organization."Todd has really developed into a great race-car driver. He's very smart with suspension with setups, so he's going to be a tremendous asset to this team ... ," he said. "Hes up to date with this stuff. I'm out of date with new technology, so Todd brings that with him, plus his ability to go fast and win races, so I'm going to jump in there and fill in when he can't be here and learn from what he does with this team and, hopefully, and maybe down the road, if the opportunities arrive, we'll have two cars out there."
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