Youngest Bodine proving himself again

By Ron Kantowski

Thursday, March 13, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.

Super Bowl coach turned NASCAR team owner Joe Gibbs often compares his drivers to his former quarterbacks, for the decisions they must make in the heat of battle.

But Winston Cup turned Busch Series driver Todd Bodine uses a different sports analogy to explain why he's back for a second tour of duty in the Grand National ranks.

"It's like a baseball manager," said the youngest of the three racing Bodine siblings about driving in NASCAR's major leagues. "When things aren't going well, the first thing to go is the driver."

When Bodine posted only three top-10 finishes in 28 starts in 1995 after collecting seven the year before, he was let go by Mock Motorsports.

But heading into Sunday's Las Vegas 300 Busch Grand National inaugural at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Bodine is feeling somewhat vindicated.

Neither of his replacements at Mock, Morgan Shepherd in 1996 and Rick Mast this season, has done much in the No. 75 Remington Arms Ford. Meanwhile, Bodine will start the weekend atop the Busch point standings.

"Fortunately for me, this season and last year the (Mock) team hasn't done any better," said Bodine, the kid brother of Winston Cup veterans Geoff and Brett Bodine. "That shows it wasn't the driver."

And while he wouldn't come out and say it, Bodine's early-season points lead has a lot to do with the driver. He indicated that other than in the season opener at Daytona, where he finished second, he really hasn't had a car capable of winning.

He drove the No. 36 Stanley Pontiac to seventh place at Rockingham and Richmond before winding up sixth at Atlanta last week. Bodine's consistency -- he has completed 763 of 764 laps but has yet to lead one -- has enabled him to take a 10-point edge on defending champ Randy LaJoie as the Busch teams unloaded for practice today.

"The only winning car we had was at Daytona," said Bodine, who posted seven victories in three full Busch seasons (1991-93) before moving up to the Factory Stores of America Winston Cup ride. "The other three races we had a race car that was pretty bad. But we were able to make the most of a bad situation and that's what wins championships."

Bodine, who has reunited with his former Busch car owner Frank Cicci as part of a two-car stable (with Mike McLauglin as teammate) for 1997, said he is looking forward to tackling the 1.5-mile Las Vegas oval, unchartered territory for the Busch drivers.

He said feedback from brother Geoff, who drove in last November's Craftsman Truck race at LVMS, combined with his own knowledge of tracks such as Michigan and Richmond (LVMS may be a combination of the two, according to Bodine) should help in arriving at a setup.

But Bodine said if his team misses on the setup and starts back in the field Sunday, it's not a huge deal in a long race.

"Certainly, that's the one thing that makes NASCAR racing so good," Bodine said. "You have a chance to come from the back. But if you mess up in qualifying, it makes it that much harder, so you have to be a lot more patient."

Still young at 33, Bodine has plenty of patience where his career is concerned. He has a one-off deal for the Winston Cup race at Watkins Glen in his native upstate New York this fall. And his goal, naturally, is to return to Winston Cup full time.

In the meantime, the ultracompetitive Busch Series will keep him busy.

"The Busch Series is different than Winston Cup. I'm not going to say it's the same," Bodine said. "But the competition level is there. There are good drivers with good teams and when you put that combination together, you're going to have good, close racing.

"That's what we do have, every week."