Team Excedrin ready for season finale.

Todd Bodine and the Excedrin QuickTabs Racing team head to Homestead-Miami Speedway this weekend for the final event on the 2002 NASCAR Busch Series schedule.

To say it has been an interesting season would certainly be an understatement. The team has battled through both good times and bad and hopes to cap off the season with a strong performance in the Ford 300.

Bodine has experienced some ups and downs of his own at the 1.5-mile track just outside of Miami, in Homestead, Florida. He has put together two top-10 finishes in seven starts, but has also finished outside of the top 25 four times. Last year, Bodine finished in 15th place.

"Homestead has been an interesting place for me," said Bodine. "I've had a couple of good qualifying efforts and finishes, but I've also had more than my share of problems at that track too. There were a couple of years straight where things just didn't go like they should have. Just like everybody else, we would like to go there and put together a good showing since it's the last race of the season. We tested there a couple of weeks ago and we hope that will help us a bit. This Herzog Jackson Motorsports team is a good race team and we'd like to end what has been an interesting season with a bang."

Herzog Jackson Motorsports has competed at Homestead-Miami Speedway on three occasions. The first year (1999) was marred by an accident, but the team rallied back in 2000 to post its highest finish at the track, a fifth place effort after qualifying in 14th.

Crew chief Tony Liberati and the team have prepared HJM-16 for this weekend's Ford 300. Originally, the team was planning to utilize the same car Bodine ran last week in Phoenix, but due in part to minor front-end damage that Bodine sustained in the early stages of the event and the quick turnaround time needed for the trip to Miami, the team opted for HJM-16 instead.

This Chevrolet Monte Carlo is among the strongest in the Herzog Jackson Motorsports stable and is the same car that won at Kentucky Speedway in June. It has also been utilized at both events at Lowe's (Charlotte, N.C.) Motor Speedway and for the race at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

What the future holds for both Bodine and the Herzog Jackson Motorsports team remains unclear, but what is certain is the team's commitment to finishing off the 2002 season with a strong performance at Homestead-Miami Speedway and carrying that momentum into 2003 and beyond.