Tough day in Texas for Excedrin Racing Team.

When it rains it pours, and that's exactly what happened when the NASCAR Busch Series and the No. 92 Excedrin Racing team traveled to the Texas Motor Speedway for the running of the O'Reilly 300 last Saturday. Todd Bodine drove the Excedrin Chevrolet to a 30th place finish in the rain-shortened event.

"We had some problems today on pit road," said Bodine following the race. "We weren't at the top of our game, but this is one of the best pit crews that I have ever worked with and it's not something that will happen very often. They are still a relatively young group of guys and will learn from this and move on. We had an unbelievable car though and with the rain, just ran out of time. That's what we need to focus on."

Bodine lined up in 17th place on the starting grid for Saturday's race after posting a speed of 190.288 miles per hour around the 1.5-mile oval during qualifying on Thursday afternoon. Rain showers postponed the start of the event for nearly four hours before the race eventually got underway late Saturday afternoon.

As soon as the green flag finally flew, Bodine began his move towards the front of the field. When the first caution flag of the afternoon occurred at lap two Bodine had already picked up two spots. He drove the Excedrin Chevrolet Monte Carlo into the top-10 on lap 17 and then informed crew chief Tony Liberati that the car was tight off the corners. Bodine was in eighth place when NASCAR threw a competition caution at lap 42 giving teams the option to check tire wear. Liberati called Bodine into the pits on lap 43 and the crew changed all four tyres, filled the car with fuel and made a wedge adjustment in an effort to loosen up the car in the corners.

Bodine was running in the top-10 when he radioed to his crew that he felt a vibration. At a track as fast as Texas Motor Speedway, Liberati and Bodine thought it best to not take any chances and Bodine brought the car into his pit stall for an unscheduled green flag pit stop on lap 83. The team changed all four tyres, but went one lap down in the process. Unfortunately, there was a problem with a lug nut and Bodine was forced to make another pit stop the very next lap. He lost another lap and returned to the track in 33rd.

The Excedrin Chevrolet was one of the fastest cars on the track in the following laps. What proved to be the final caution flag of the day came out on lap 108 and Bodine drove onto pit lane for four tyres and fuel. The Excedrin crew picked up two spots on pit road and returned to the track in 30th place. Rain had threatened the entire event and finally began to fall steadily, forcing NASCAR to throw the red flag and end the race after the completion of only 116 of the scheduled 200 laps.

"This was a great racecar," said Bodine following the event. "We had an off-day in the pits and that hurt us, of course, because this was easily a top-five car. Looking on the bright side though, we go to a lot of tracks that are a lot like this one and to know that we have this good of a car to take to them is really great for us and really bad for our competition."