Geoff Bodine: Daytona 500 Winner, Modified Legend and Bobsled Builder

Geoff Bodine is a former American driver whose Winston Cup career ran for three decades and who later helped build bobsleds for the U.S. team. He was a Modified champion before he reached NASCAR's top division, and his Cup record includes an 18-win career and a 1986 Daytona 500 victory.

Who is Geoff Bodine and where did his racing begin?

Geoffrey Eli Bodine was born on April 18, 1949, into a racing family. His father and grandfather built Chemung Speedrome, which opened a year after he was born, and he was the oldest of three Bodine brothers. The track his family built was where his own racing began.

He began racing at Chemung in the micro-midget division at the age of five. At 15 he entered the Powder Puff Derby event, which showed how early his appetite for competition had developed.

Before reaching Winston Cup, Bodine had built a name in Modified racing across the Northeast, competing against figures such as Richie Evans, Jerry Cook and Jimmy Spencer. Brett and Todd Bodine are his brothers, and his sister is Denise.

A Modified legend who won 18 Cup races, survived a fiery Truck crash and then helped build winning bobsleds.

How did Bodine build his Modified reputation?

Bodine won Modified championships at Stafford, Shangri-La, Spencer and Utica-Rome speedways. He also took major events, including the Lancaster 200 in 1978 and 1981 and the Oswego Classic in 1981. He won the Thompson 300, the Cardinal Classic at Martinsville in 1975 and two Oxford 250 races, in 1980 and 1981.

In 1978 no Modified driver in recorded history won more races than he did. Working with Dick Armstrong's cars, he made 84 feature starts and won 55 of them.

Those wins came at Pocono in the Race of Champions, at Stafford in the Spring Sizzler, at Oswego in the Budweiser 200 and in a run of six Yankee All-Star League races that he swept. Guinness credits him with the record for most wins in one season, a title tied to those 55 victories.

He also collected six Busch Grand National victories during his career. Earlier Modified wins included the Race of Champions at Trenton in 1972 and the Stafford 200 in 1978.

How did Bodine's Winston Cup career begin?

Bodine made his first Winston Cup start in 1979 and earned Rookie of the Year honours in 1982, his first full season. His first pole came on his nineteenth start, at the 1982 Firecracker 400, and his first victory came at Martinsville in 1984, his 69th race start.

That 1984 win was also the first for Hendrick Motorsports, the team he was driving for at the time.

The 1986 Daytona 500, NASCAR's premier race, was his top victory. Further honours included the 1987 IROC crown, the 1992 Busch Clash, a 1994 Winston Select win, and the 1994 Busch Pole Award, now the Budweiser Pole Award.

How did Bodine's Cup career build after his early years?

Bodine drove the No. 5 car for Hendrick Motorsports, a turnaround after several difficult years. Over his Cup career he made 565 starts, took 37 poles and won 18 races, earning nearly $16 million in winnings. Those figures came over more than a quarter century of racing.

His 37 poles were a significant part of that total. His career in the sport stretched more than 28 years, and he drove for car owners such as Junior Johnson, Bud Moore and Rick Hendrick. After Alan Kulwicki died in 1993, he bought the assets of Kulwicki's team and ran his own cars for several seasons.

Bodine was an innovator as well. Power steering and full-faced helmets both reached Winston Cup through him. He was also the final driver to take a win while lapping the entire field, a result that came at North Wilkesboro in the fall of 1994.

Atlanta Motor Speedway's track record is his, set on a pole lap following the 1997 repave, at over 197 mph.

NASCAR honoured him as one of its 50 Greatest Drivers during the sanctioning body's 50th anniversary celebration, a recognition that sits alongside his Cup totals.

Why did Bodine and Dale Earnhardt become rivals?

Seven-time champion Dale Earnhardt and Bodine found themselves locked in a feud during the late 1980s. The 1987 Winston race produced a clash that grew into a feud, when Earnhardt pushed Bodine and Bill Elliott aside to win the $200,000 purse.

NASCAR handed Bodine a $1,000 fine and three weeks' probation. Six days later he tagged Earnhardt in a Busch Grand National race at Charlotte Motor Speedway, and NASCAR added a $15,000 fine and extended the probation to the end of 1987. Bodine appealed, and the penalty was later revoked.

In that same 1988 Busch event, Earnhardt sent Bodine spinning. Bodine retired from the race and then walked over to Earnhardt's Cup car, drawing an X in the air with his hand.

The following day, Earnhardt wrecked Bodine's car in the 1988 Coca-Cola 600 while Bodine was trying to pass him. NASCAR assessed a five-lap penalty on Earnhardt. Rick Hendrick said it was too light, while Richard Childress felt it was too harsh.

Two days after that, sanctioning body officials sat the drivers and owners down together in Daytona Beach, Florida, and the parties settled their disputes.

Looking back in a 2015 article, Bodine said he and Earnhardt had been friends early on, sharing dinners and letting their children play together. Their relationship changed once both drove in the Winston Cup Series, and he still differs with others on who was mostly responsible.

In his autobiography Bodine devoted a chapter to Earnhardt. He wrote that he only learned after Earnhardt's death that Earnhardt had hated him.

What happened in the 2000 Daytona Truck Series crash?

On 18 February 2000, Bodine was caught up in a violent, fiery crash on the 57th lap of the opening Daytona 250 Truck race at Daytona International Speedway. He was at the wheel of a Ford F-150, the No. 15 for Billy Ballew, when the wreck happened.

The incident began with three trucks side by side: Kurt Busch, Rob Morgan and Lyndon Amick. Morgan was turned into Amick's truck, which then pushed Morgan into Bodine, who was running on the outside.

Bodine's front end lifted over the outside retaining wall, and the truck crashed nose first into the catch fencing at nearly 190 mph (310 km/h).

The impact tore the front of the truck apart and ruptured its fuel cell. Lonnie Rush Jr. hit the driver's side as Bodine came back to the track, and Jimmy Kitchens struck the truck again, igniting spilled fuel. The truck tumbled nine times and came to rest upside down.

Announcers, crew members and fans initially feared he had died. A total of thirteen other trucks took part in the crash, which ranks among the biggest wrecks the series has seen.

A video of the crash is still available online, a reminder of how close the outcome came to being fatal.

Bodine's injuries included fractures to the right wrist, right cheekbone, a back vertebra and right ankle, plus a concussion. Kitchens was also hospitalised but suffered no serious injuries, and nine spectators were injured too.

How did Bodine return to racing after the 2000 crash?

Only ten races were missed in 2000 while he recovered, and he was back at Richmond on 6 May to take thirteenth. Results then dipped, and in September the team let him go. His final full-time Cup year was 2011, which set the close of his career.

In 2002 he returned for the Daytona 500, where he finished third behind Ward Burton and Elliott Sadler.

Between 2001 and 2004 he made just eighteen Cup starts, with a single top-five result in 2002. In 2004 he tried to qualify for the Brickyard 400 with Gary Trout Autosports, but failed, and he made no further attempts that year.

What was Bodine's racing twilight like?

In 2009 Bodine teamed up with his brother Todd and Larry Gunselman to form a team. Its No. 64 Toyota was the car he tried to qualify for the Daytona 500 that year. Those final years were spent with smaller teams and part-time schedules.

A Truck Series return came in 2010 at Atlanta with Team Gill Racing, his first in that series since 2004. Engine trouble left him 26th, even though he had qualified eighth.

The 2011 campaign saw him split time between the Nos. 35 and 36 cars for Tommy Baldwin Racing, backed by Luke & Associates.

In October 2012 Bodine announced his retirement after 27 seasons, saying he wanted to spend time with family and do charitable work.

He also ran a power sports business, a Honda dealer in West Melbourne, Florida, from June 2012.

By August 2014 he worked as a Driver Analyst for The Racing Experts, a site that had carried news of his retirement, and wrote a monthly column there.

How did Bodine get into bobsled building?

Bodine co-owns the Bo-Dyn Bobsled Company, an interest that began while he watched the 1992 Winter Olympics. The U.S. bobsled team was struggling, and its sleds were imported rather than built at home, so he believed his race-car engineering could help.

He took a few runs at Lake Placid to test his ideas and learn about the sleds. Bo-Dyn began in 1992 with Bob Cuneo, a chassis builder and close friend from Chassis Dynamics, and its name joins Bo for Bodine to Dyn for Chassis Dynamics.

He founded the USA Bobsled Project to build a winning sled for the U.S. teams, and the national team first used the sleds in 1994.

A decade after its start, the American squad collected three medals in Bo-Dyn sleds at Salt Lake City in 2002. At Vancouver in 2010, Steven Holcomb took gold in a sled called Night Train.

Each January from 2006 to 2010 a charity run was held at the Lake Placid track, with the U.S. bobsled team and NASCAR drivers raising money for the sled project. Todd Bodine and Tony Stewart were among the participants.

Bodine's legacy across racing and bobsleds

Bodine's name is attached to several records and honours: the Guinness entry for most wins in one season, the Atlanta track record and a place among NASCAR's 50 Greatest Drivers. He also moved into a second sport through Bo-Dyn.

The Bo-Dyn sleds were built to address a problem Bodine saw in 1992, when the team's equipment was imported rather than developed at home. The medal results and the charity runs at Lake Placid are the most visible outcomes of that later work.

Career highlights at a glance