August 24, 2010
By Allen Madding
Brett Bodine makes a quick run through the gears of the Ford Mustang pace car quickly accelerating to 95 mph on the front stretch of Bristol Motor Speedway shuttling three print journalist off into turn one.
Bodine tosses the car into the turn two to three feet from the Safer Barrier and follows the outside line through turn two and onto the back stretch.
Besides the feeling of the car squatting and pulling myself against the seat, the first thing I notice is the sound of rubber remnants of Friday night’s NASCAR Nationwide Series Goodyear Eagles hitting the inner fenders of the pony car.
The top of the track is where all the rubber that scrubs off the tires during a race collects. The pace car’s hot tires are picking up the pieces of melted rubber, some are sticking to the tire, while others are bouncing off the inner fenders like driving a car at speed on a gravel road.
Then of course there is the sensation of the side force of going through the 23-degree banking in the turns at speed. The pace car is going around the track somewhere around 50 mph slower than the NASCAR Sprint Cup cars make a lap at speed, but the speed is sufficient enough to appreciate the banking of the turns and the radius of the turns at each end of the track.
Bodine effortlessly guides the car into turn three and dives for the bottom line which used to be the only way around Bristol. The concrete in the bottom lane is amazingly rough and I feel the car bouncing as it tries to maintain traction on an obviously uneven surface. Bodine comments that this is why the upper grove seemed to be the place to run and the place to make passes (last weekend) –- it's smoother.
The other advantage of the upper grove is the radius of the turn is wider enabling the driver to maintain momentum coming off the turn.
For the final lap, Bodine chooses the compromise groove, a middle line about 10-12 feet from the wall just high enough to avoid the rough surface the bottom line has developed and then in turn three heads the car back down to the infield. As he turns the Mustang from the center of turn three down to the apron of the track, the steep angle of the banking of the track becomes real apparent to everyone in the car. As the car comes to a stop, the smell of hot brakes and hot rubber fills the air.
Brett Bodine serves as the pace car driver for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series and has since 2004. The position is a natural fit for Bodine who spent time competing in the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour before moving on to the NASCAR Busch Series and the NASCAR Winston Cup Series. Before accepting a position with NASCAR, Bodine logged 5 wins in the NASCAR Busch Series and one NASCAR Winston Cup Series win.
After 18 years of racing in the NASCAR Winston Cup Series, Bodine was hired by NASCAR in 2004 as a Special Project Engineer on NASCAR’s Research and Development staff as he holds a mechanical engineering from the State University of New York at Alfred.
He was heavily involved in the new car utilized in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. Presently, Bodine holds the title of Director of Competition for Research and Development at the NASCAR Research Center in North Carolina.
The thoughts and ideas expressed by this writer or any other writer on Insider Racing News, are not necessarily the views of the staff and/or management of IRN.
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