53 Facts About Brett Bodine

Brett Elias Bodine III was born on January 11,1959 and is an American former stock car racing driver, former driver of the pace car in Cup Series events, and current NASCAR employee.

Brett Bodine attended Alfred State College and received an associate's degree in mechanical engineering before he became a professional race car driver.

Brett Bodine began in hobby stock races at the Chemung Speedrome in 1977.

In 1979 Brett Bodine started racing a part-time schedule in the NASCAR Modified Nation Championship series, placing 35th in the final standings.

In 1983 Brett Bodine picked up his first national championship win at Stafford Motor Speedway while placing 7th in the final standings.

Brett Bodine placed 5th in the Northeast Region of the NASCAR Winston Weekly Racing series with 6 wins in 54 starts.

In 1984 Brett Bodine picked up another National Championship win, this time at Oxford Maine.

Brett Bodine placed 12th in the Northeast Region of the NASCAR Winston Weekly Racing series with 3 wins in 37 starts and helped his car-owner secure the Stafford Motor Speedway track championship.

The small team did not have a pit crew and had to do the whole race on a single set of tires but Brett Bodine managed to qualify 7th and finish 12th in his debut race.

Rick Hendrick was not interested in fielding a full time Busch series team but helped Brett Bodine bring an associate sponsorship from Exxon over to the 00 team.

Brett Bodine picked up his first pole of 1986 in the second race of the season at Rockingham, leading 18 laps before falling out with mechanical trouble.

Brett Bodine picked up his second pole of the season at Martinsville and lead the first 21 laps before getting hit by Kyle Petty while working lapped traffic and then taken out in a second incident later in the race.

Brett Bodine rallied to finish the season with 15 straight top 10 finishes including wins at Bristol and the season finale at Martinsville.

Brett Bodine was voted the series most popular driver at the conclusion of the season.

Brett Bodine made his Winston Cup Debut in 1986, driving the No 2 Exxon Chevy in the Coca-Cola 600.

Brett Bodine started 32nd and finished 18th in the Rick Hendrick owned entry, earning the bonus money for being the highest finishing rookie driver.

Brett Bodine again drove the full Busch series schedule in the No 00 Oldsmobile in 1987.

Brett Bodine replaced Labonte on the pace laps the next week at Bristol.

Again starting from the rear of the field, Brett Bodine ran as high as 2nd and finished in 9th place.

Brett Bodine returned to Charlotte the next weekend and qualified 9th for the 600 and lead 17 laps but was collected in a wreck while running in the top 10 and eventually fell out of the race with an engine issue.

In 1988, Brett Bodine moved to the Cup series full-time for Bud Moore Engineering driving the No 15 Crisco Thunderbird.

Brett Bodine's car dropped a cylinder late in the race and he held on to finish 4th.

Brett Bodine returned to Budd Moore's team in 1989 driving the No 15 Motorcraft Ford.

Brett Bodine recorded a top 5 finish at Michigan and a total of 6 top tens, moving up one spot to finish the season 19th in points.

Brett Bodine placed 2nd in the Winston Open, just missing out on making the All-Star Race.

Late in the 1989 season, Brett Bodine made the decision to leave Bud Moore's team due to that team's sponsorship uncertainty for the 1990 season.

Brett Bodine had disagreements with Bud Moore on the type of chassis that the team was using.

Brett Bodine won his first Cup Series race in the 7th race of the season at North Wilkesboro Speedway, which came under some controversy as some felt that Darrell Waltrip was robbed of the win.

Brett Bodine had led 63 laps in the middle of the race and then re-took the lead on lap 318 after short pitting on a round of green flag pit stops.

Brett Bodine slipped into the pits and came out without losing the lead because the pace car was keeping the second-place car back.

Brett Bodine started from the pole position and lead 103 of the race's first 218 laps.

In 1994 Brett Bodine finished 2nd in the season opening Busch Clash.

Brett Bodine continued on as the driver with Dean Combs coming on as crew chief, managing top ten finishes at Wilksboro and Pocono, and finished twentieth in points.

Brett Bodine easily bested the performance of his Junior Johnson Racing teammate, the 27 car driven primarily by Elton Sawyer, which placed 37th in points with 5 DNQs and no top 10s in 1995.

Troubles erupted when Catalyst stopped paying its sponsorship fees, leading to a lawsuit, with Brett Bodine eventually removing all sponsorship decals from the car.

The lack of funding took its toll on the team as Brett Bodine failed to qualify for a late season race at Rockingham and the team slipped all the way down to 29th in the final standings, although his final position was still better than the new Lowe's team which placed 30th with driver Mike Skinner.

For 1998 Brett Bodine found reliable sponsorship from Paychex and his Ford Taurus, although the $3 million per year deal was significantly less than that of top teams.

Brett Bodine was running at the finish of the first 23 races of the 1998 season, tied for the longest streak to start the season.

Paychex returned in 1999 but Brett Bodine was unable to carry the momentum of the previous year and slipped to 35th in the standings with just 3 top 20 finishes, including a season's best 12th at Bristol, while failing to qualify for 2 races.

Brett Bodine signed Ralphs Supermarkets to sponsor his car for 2000, and sold half the team to businessman Richard Hilton.

Brett Bodine struggled and failed to qualify for 5 of the season's first 21 races, falling all the way to 40th in the point standings.

Brett Bodine became the first Cup series driver to start wearing the HANS device in 2000.

Ralphs returned as the primary sponsor and Brett Bodine added RedCell Batteries as a major associate for 2001.

RedCell batteries stopped paying their sponsorship bills mid-season and Brett Bodine signed Wells Fargo as a major associate sponsor.

Three races into the season Hooters was signed to a deal, although at this point Brett Bodine's team was well behind in development.

Brett Bodine had four top 20 finishes, including a season's best 13th at Talladega, but failed to qualify for four late season races and finished 36th in the points.

Brett Bodine placed 4th in the Winston Open, just missing out on qualifying for the All-Star race.

Early in the 2003 season Brett Bodine became involved in a difficult time during a divorce from his wife and team co-owner Diane.

That same weekend, Brett Bodine was seriously injured in a practice accident after running over a piece of debris that cut a right front tire.

Brett Bodine recovered from his injuries and returned with a one race ride with the struggling Morgan-McClure Motorsports, but the car failed to make the field.

Unable to find a sponsor for his team or a ride with another team, Brett Bodine decided to retire from driving.

Brett Bodine led more than 1,000 laps in both the Busch Series and in the Cup Series.

Brett Bodine did all of the driving for NASCAR's Car of Tomorrow prototype.