NASCAR Winston Cup Pepsi 400 Preview -- #11, Brett Bodine
1 July 1997
#11 Brett Bodine, Close Call Phone Card Ford Thunderbird NASCAR Winston Cup Series Pepsi 400 Advance Daytona International Speedway BRETT BODINE NOTES & QUOTES: PEPSI 400 DAYTONA BEACH, FL - Brett Bodine finished ninth in last year's Pepsi 400 at Daytona International Speedway. He believes another top-10 finish is quite possible in Saturday's 400-mile race a the high-speed, 2.5-mile track. "In July at Daytona, speed alone is not the key," says Bodine. "Handling is the most important thing in July. The track is hot and slick, and speed along will not do the job. I feel good about how our car will handle in the race. Quickness through the corners is so important in July." - Another reason for Bodine's optimism is under the hood of his Close Call Ford Thunderbird. Jack Roush builds the engines that Bodine runs. "When it comes to restricted race motors, Jack's engines are among the best as Mark (Martin) showed in winning Talladega," says Bodine. - Bodine finished 18th in this year's Daytona 500, one of seven top-20 finishes so far in 1997. He had only eight in all of 1996. - Bodine stands seventh in the number of miles run this season. Only Dale Earnhardt, Michael Waltrip, Dale Jarrett, Ricky Rudd, Terry Labonte and Johnny Benson have completed more miles during the first 15 races of the 1997 NASCAR Winston Cup season. Bodine has finished 6,038.266 of the 6,215,695 miles run so far this year. - Because of his impressive finish record, Bodine stands 21st in the race for the the 1997 championship. He is only 118 points out of the top 15. "We've made a lot of headway during the first half of the season," says Bodine. "We are a lot better team now than we were a year ago. We knew we needed to take it one step at a time in getting in position to run up front. We knew it was not going to be an overnight thing. We have been a consistent top-20 team; now we need to start running in the top 15 on a consistent basis and finishing in the top 10 every so often. That's our next step." - Bodine's next top 10 this season will be his third of the season and match his total for all of 1995 and 1996 combined. "We struggled big time in '95 and '96, but we are moving forward in '97," says Bodine. By Sports Marketing Enterprises