Excedrin Racing Team posts best finish of season.

Todd Bodine and the Excedrin Racing team posted a fourth-place finish this past Saturday at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway in an accident-marred event. After an incident on lap 15 of the 117-lap Aaron"s 312 that caused major damage to at least 27 cars, Bodine scored the best finish of the season for the Herzog Jackson Motorsports team.

"I called it before the race that we were going to have a big wreck," said Bodine following the event. "I knew it was going to be big because these guys were running qualifying shocks and they're hard to drive. The experienced guys can do it, but I knew the inexperienced drivers were going to have problems."

Bodine ran a speed of 184.936 miles per hour around the 2.66-mile track during qualifying on Thursday afternoon, which placed him in 17th position on the starting grid and lined him up on the inside of the ninth row.

It wasn't long after the green flag flew for the start of Saturday's NASCAR Busch Series event when things came, literally, crashing down for much of the 43-car field. Contact between several cars near the front of the field resulted in mayhem on just the 15th lap of the race. Johnny Sauter, driver of the No. 2 Chevrolet took the ride of his life when his Monte Carlo flipped upside down. When the cars stopped wrecking on the backstretch and the dust had settled, NASCAR counted over 27 cars involved, most with extensive sheet metal damage. Somehow Bodine, who was running near the top of the track when the incident occurred, managed, with the help of veteran spotter Lorin Ranier, to navigate the No. 92 Excedrin Chevrolet through the mess, receiving only relatively minor right front damage. NASCAR threw the red flag, which gave the Herzog Jackson Motorsports team, led by crew chief Tony Liberati, the opportunity to access the damage while the car was parked on the track.

When NASCAR officials restarted the race under caution after a 40-minute red flag period, Bodine brought the car down pit road to the attention of his crew. The team ultimately made three stops in an effort to repair the damage to the front of the car. The green flag flew again on lap 20, and Bodine held down the 11th position with only 15 cars remaining on the track. The No. 92 Excedrin Chevrolet went one lap down to the leaders on lap 52 as a result of the damage to the front valance that affected on the aerodynamics of the car.

By lap 87 of the event Bodine had worked his way into fifth place with only four cars left on the lead lap. Bodine and rookie Casey Mears were the only cars one lap down. On lap 103, the third place car experienced engine trouble and Bodine held off a late charge by Mears to finish in fourth place. Only winner Jason Keller, along with drivers Stacy Compton and Tim Fedewa, remained on the lead lap. The top-five finish helped the Excedrin Racing team to pick up two spots in the 2002 NASCAR Busch Series owner point standings. The team now stands in 9th place.

"The front end of the Excedrin Chevrolet was pretty beat up in that wreck, which we were lucky to get through," commented Bodine. "The guys did a great job just patching it back together. It was going to be a great race and we had a really good racecar before the wreck. We got that lap down and knew we were racing for fourth at that point. Fortunately we got it."

The NASCAR Busch Series travels west to California next weekend for the running of the Auto Club 300 at California Speedway on Saturday, April 27.