(Photo: Sam Draiss | The Podium Finish)
Todd Bodine never expected to race this season.
Matter of fact, at 794 career starts, Bodine wasn’t sure if he’d ever race again. But when opportunity knocks, the fans answer.
Nearly 11 months ago, Marcus Lemonis, chairman and chief executive officer of Camping World, sent a tweet asking for 800 reasons for Bodine to make his 800th NASCAR start. If Lemonis received 800 tweets with the hashtag “#GoodSamOnion,” he would agree to sponsor Bodine for six races to reach the milestone.
Thousands of tweets later, Lemonis made it official. Bodine could make six starts in the Camping World Truck Series, but all he needed was a team.
Stewart Friesen and Halmar-Friesen Racing wasted no time stepping in.
“Stewart Friesen was the first one to text me and ask me if it was for real,” Bodine told The Podium Finish. “It was pretty flattering that Stewart and Chris (Larsen, team owner) wanted to do this… everybody was on board with having me come in here.”
Bodine immediately felt at home with the team. He re-kindled relationships with former crew members on the team and built a strong relationship with Friesen and his family.
Bodine even traveled with Friesen to some of his dirt modified and late model races in Upstate New York.
“A pleasant surprise about this whole thing is the friendship that we’ve developed with Stewart and Jessica (Friesen, wife),” Bodine said. “Just great, great people. To be able to share this with them and have them part of my journey, it’s been great.
“A lot of the guys in the shop were on some of my teams in the past. The shop is actually my old race shop when I drove with Travis Carter. So, I mean, there was a lot of things that felt like home and these guys have made me feel like it’s home.”
Once Bodine secured a deal with Lemonis and Halmar-Friesen, he needed to make arrangements with his day job. As a NASCAR analyst with FOX Sports, Bodine built his race schedule around when the network needed him the most.
FOX gave him nine potential races and Bodine settled on his six favorites.
“A lot of the determining factor for [which] tracks it was is what ones we could have the most fun at after the race is over,” Bodine said. “This whole thing is about having fun. It’s about making memories and enjoying the last six times.”
There was one race in particular that Bodine wanted as his final — Pocono. Bodine grew up in Chemung, New York, just two hours from the track. He wished his final race was at Watkins Glen, his true home track, but the Truck Series didn’t race there in 2022.
But, Pocono feels like a second home for Bodine.
“I’ve been coming [to Pocono] since 1972 when I was eight years old watching my brother race the three-quarter mile track,” he said. “It was a no-brainer to come here for the last one.”
(Photo: Sam Draiss | The Podium Finish)
Before Pocono, Bodine had Las Vegas, Darlington, Texas, Sonoma and Nashville on his schedule. Once the deal was officially set, he prepared for his return to racing.
Bodine finished 21st in his return at Las Vegas despite spinning and crashing on two separate occasions. Though he struggled in the first race, he said returning to the seat felt completely natural.
“It’s like riding a bike,” Bodine said. “Two laps into practice and I was running wide open and it felt like it used to.”
But, the Truck Series is a lot different from the last time Bodine raced in it. The drivers are younger with different competitiveness and aggression levels.
“They race differently,” Bodine said. “That’s been a talk in the garage area and in NASCAR is how the racing has changed and the lack of respect and those kinds of things. They race hard. But you know, when we raced hard back in the day, we still showed respect.”
In the following races, Bodine scored a 10th place finish at Darlington along with a 13th at Texas. After finishing 20th at Sonoma, a late blown tire took him out of contention at Nashville when he thought could’ve finished in the top 10.
That set up Bodine’s highly anticipated 800th start in the series’ regular-season finale at Pocono. Fans streamed into the stands and onto the grid with yellow shirts with “The Onion” printed across the front. Cup Series star Ross Chastain wore a shirt and snapped pictures near Bodine’s truck.
After a storm canceled qualifying, Bodine started from the back because of owner’s points. Just 12 laps into the race, he crashed in Turn 1 after contact with Hailie Deegan and Blaine Perkins.
Bodine’s 800th race ended with a trip to the infield care center and a last-place finish.
“Hailie got me. Doesn’t surprise me,” Bodine said. “There’s a lot of inexperience. She just doesn’t understand that there are certain situations you just have to back out of the throttle, get out of the hole.
“Probably, she felt like it was a little payback for Texas. She thinks I wrecked her at Texas, which I didn’t.”
Though it didn’t end the way that Bodine would have liked, he still got a lot out of returning to reach his 800th start. A long, fulfilled career came to a likely close with a proper send-off.
“To know that this is the last time I’m going to buckle in and do it, it’s a little hard,” Bodine said. “I’m very fortunate to have had a great career. I’ve met a lot of great people have a lot of good times, winning some races along the way.
“I got to do what I love to do for a living. Not a lot of people in this world can say that.”
