ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, August 12, 1996 TAG: 9608120142
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WATKINS GLEN, N. Y.
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER STAFF WRITER
The driver who ended up in victory lane at Watkins Glen International on Sunday considered his accomplishment a miracle.
But that driver was not bruised and battered Dale Earnhardt. It was Geoff Bodine, who won a Winston Cup series race for the first time in almost two years.
Bodine gambled on a pit stop strategy that worked perfectly, then squeezed past Ken Schrader with eight laps to go and won by .44 seconds over Terry Labonte as Schrader faded with engine problems.
Mark Martin was third, followed by Jeff Gordon, Bobby Labonte and Earnhardt, who led the most laps (54 of 90) and gamely drove the entire race with a broken clavicle and sternum. Eighteen other cars finished on the lead lap.
``Ah, yes, miracles do happen,'' Bodine told his team on the radio during his victory lap. ``Yeah, this is the way it's supposed to be.''
Life for Bodine has not been the way it's supposed to be for almost two years, when his ex-wife Kathy left him after the August race in Bristol.
Although he lapped the field to win at North Wilkesboro that October, the bottom fell out last year.
``If you've never been through what I've been through, you just can't imagine,'' he said. ``It was terrible - the worst time of my life. It was so bad, I thought about selling the team. I thought about quitting.
``But I had friends who stuck with me - [business manager] Bill Doucette and my crew chief, Paul Andrews. I don't really know why they stayed. I guess they just had confidence that someday my life would be back to normal and we could concentrate on racing.
``This victory means all that. It means we survived the worst time of my life. We survived with friends and with God's help and you just can't get any better than that. I can't believe we pulled this off.''
Although he's talked about his problems in the past, Bodine said his heart really wasn't into racing until recently. ``About two months ago, it started to get better. A month ago, it was really good and today was great. I was finally able to concentrate and do all the things I needed to do to race again.''
Bodine, who started 13th, was never higher than 10th until a yellow flag flew on lap 54 when Robert Pressley's car died and stopped on the track. While everyone else pitted, Bodine elected to gamble and stay out until it was time for his normal pit stop. And that put him in the lead.
``I guess everyone was saying, `What the heck is he doing?''' Bodine said. ``But we learned from Indy that we spent too much time in the pits and got way behind. We said we weren't going to do that here. We said we were going to have just a two pit-stop race and that's it. We said no matter what happened, we were only going to stop twice.
``It was tempting to stop [on lap 55]. The QVC Ford was pulling to the right trying to get in there. I think it was a pretty gutsy move. And it worked.''
It worked because a lap after Bodine came in for his normal pit stop on lap 62, the yellow flag flew again. That allowed Bodine to move back up near the head of the field when most of the cars pitted again for additional fuel.
At that point, Bodine was ninth, trailing a group of cars that elected to stay out and see if Bodine's strategy would work again - for them.
``A key was that I got through those cars ahead of me really quick,'' Bodine said.
The race-winning pass started after the final turn of lap 82. Schrader ``was slowing me down in the corners and I could see Terry catching us and I said to myself, `I gotta do something really quick,''' Bodine said.
``I really ran him into turn one hard hoping he'd slide up just a little bit to give me that land underneath. He got a little high getting off turn one and that's all I needed.
``He tried to get back over to the inside of the track and we touched a little bit, but we made it through there and I got by him. It took a little while for Terry to get by Kenny and I got that cushion back.''
Labonte didn't have anything for Bodine anyway, telling reporters afterwards, ``I was just holding on those last few laps.''
This was Bodine's 18th career victory and one of his most important.
``Today proves I'm surviving as a race car driver,'' he said. ``It was just time to try to get on with my life. I'm not telling you the rest of my life is in order. The personal part of my life is still very hurt. But thank God the professional side is coming back together.''
LENGTH: Medium: 87 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP Geoff Bodine celebrates his win Sunday in the Bud atby CNBthe Glen at Watkins Glen, N.Y. color
2. headshot of Schrader KEYWORDS: AUTO RACING