Todd Bodine is trying to hold off Johnny Benson for the Truck Series title. Credit: Autostock

10 Questions: T. Bodine

Todd Bodine is in the middle of one of the biggest fights of his racing career, but he has the advantage of having led a great portion of the Craftsman Truck Series point standings heading into this weekend's Kroger 200 at Martinsville Speedway.

Bodine said he's racing for himself, his family and of course the team and sponsors of his No. 30 Germain Racing Toyota.

Bodine took a break recently to answer 10 questions not necessarily connected to his racing career.

1. What's your least favorite household chore?

	Todd Bodine has led the standings since the season's fifth race. Credit: Autostock
	Craftsman Truck Series Standings after 20 of 25 races Pos. Driver Behind 1. Todd Bodine Leader 2. Johnny Benson -113 3. David Reutimann -255 4. Ted Musgrave -281 5. Rick Crawford -368 6. Ron Hornaday -411 7. David Starr -432 8. Terry Cook -495 9. Dennis Setzer -499 10. Mike Bliss -502 • Complete standings, click here

Bodine: Cleaning the toilet. But I'll do it. I don't put off doing it -- I just do it. I don't have a problem doing it; it's just not on the top of my list.

2. Which athlete outside of racing do you most admire?

Bodine: Cal Ripken because he's honest, he got to where he did by hard work and he was good to everybody -- it didn't matter if you were sitting the bench or playing AAA -- he treated you like you were his best friend.

I guess Cal does remind me of Terry Labonte a little bit, from our sport. He's the Iron Man, the whole bit, so I'll give you that.

3. What's your best memory of your hometown?

Bodine: One of my best friends and myself, we were about 8 years old, and we had this old-fashioned country store, Currin's. It was just old-fashioned, wood floors and it had that smell of an old country store.

We used to go up there and buy a lemon for a nickel, cut it in half and split it, and eat the lemon. That's just good country living.

4. If you could go back in time, what period in history would you like to live in and why?

Bodine: It would be the '40s because of the cool fashions, cool cars and great music -- I love big band music -- cool houses with great architecture. And living was simple and easy.

I don't think it's relative to what it is today. It was much easier.

5. What is your favorite outdoor activity?

Bodine: I love boating, especially down in Florida, but we don't get to do that too much, but I love that.

Of course there's golf -- the usual things. And the one thing that's different than most people is R/C car racing. I don't get to do that too much, either.

Oh boy -- I've probably got 12 R/C cars in my fleet total. My racing cars were built from scratch, but I have some that were ready to run when I got them -- you just open 'em up, put batteries or gas in 'em and run 'em.

But I love building 'em and especially doing the paint jobs on 'em. The bodies come clear and I do all the paint jobs on them myself, because I've always loved doing paint schemes on racecars.

6. What is must-see TV for you?

Todd Bodine finished second to Mark Martin twice before collecting his first win of the season at Atlanta. Credit: Autostock

Inside the Numbers Todd Bodine's season statistics Race Start Finish Status Daytona 8 2 running California 5 2 running Atlanta 1 1 running Martinsville 9 12 running Gateway 3 1 running Charlotte 26 3 running Mansfield 1 15 running Dover 7 3 running Texas 6 1 running Michigan 25 4 running Milwaukee 7 20 running Kansas 35 7 running Kentucky 9 10 running Memphis 19 15 running ORP 29 7 running Nashville 21 8 running Bristol 11 2 running Loudon 7 4 running Las Vegas 8 12 running Talladega 4 4 running

Bodine: M*A*S*H. I've seen every episode a dozen times, and every night at 11 o'clock I turn it on and watch it more.

I can recite the lines verbatim, yes. Who's my favorite character from M*A*S*H? That's a tough one, because they're all great characters, but probably the one that nobody would think about is [Sergeant Luther] Rizzo.

He was a gruff, old, cigar-smoking, motor pool guy with dirty fingernails. He reminds me of a good ol' dirt-track racer. Like you'd see at the old Chemung [N.Y.] Speedrome, exactly.

Everybody loves Hawkeye and Radar and all of them -- but you gotta love Rizzo.

7. If you could trade places with anyone for a day, who would it be and why?

Bodine: Boy, I don't know. If it doesn't have to be someone who's alive, it would be Frank Sinatra. He's my hero.

If I could sing I definitely would, because Frank Sinatra's it. It doesn't get any better than that. He had the girls, he had the looks, he had the voice -- he had it all.

That was kind of a big bad thing.

8. What is your favorite recent movie and your favorite all-time flick?

Bodine: Now, you're going to shoot me, because I'll give you the standard answer, because it is the truth. I like any comedy, because if I'm laughing I'm enjoying the movie.

Anything by Richard Pryor is great. It really doesn't matter who it is -- I just enjoy comedies. Recent? I loved Wedding Crashers.

My favorite movie of all-time movie, though, is For the Love of the Game, because every time I get disappointed in racing or have a bad day or anything I think of that movie and what it stands for.

It's with Kevin Costner and it's about a baseball player. And he does it for the love of the game.

And here's something I've always wanted to do, but I didn't because I was afraid I'd get picked on about it. I wanted to put 'For the Love of the Race' on the dashes of my racecars.

But I never did it. Maybe that would work for someone like Morgan Shepherd -- he just does it because he loves it. And that's the problem with this sport right now -- nobody does it for the love of it any more.

9. What was your first job and your most vivid memory of it?

SIPPING FROM CUP When Scott Wimmer parted ways with Morgan-McClure Motorsports, Todd Bodine was named the temporary replacement at 'Dega.  •   Complete story, click here

Bodine: The first job I had, I didn't get paid for. It was when I was 11 and 12 years old, and it was myself and a friend of mine, Kirt. My dad had a '34 Ford pickup that he used for the track cleanup truck, putting Speedi-Dri down and all that kind of stuff.

On Sundays, he would let Kirt and myself drive the truck around if we would pick up all the garbage at the Chemung Speedrome. So that's how I learned to drive and that was my first job.

Now, my first paying job was in high school. I used to fill in graves for 25 bucks a grave. We didn't figure out how many shovels it took to fill 'em, and we didn't time ourselves either.

It was me and a buddy and we just got it done. Twenty-five bucks apiece and we did it by hand. We'd jump right down on the casket because you had to pack it in along the sides.

It didn't creep us out at all. We used to sit way off to the side, wait for everybody to leave and then go in there and do it.

Then my first paying job right after that was working at Sherri-Cup for Billy Corazzo.

10. What have you learned about yourself in the last year?

Bodine: I've learned that I'm a lot more resilient than I thought. Just the recent events in my life have done that -- divorce, separation, lawyers and now racing for a championship for Toyota and Germain Racing, all the appearances.

I can do a lot more than I thought I could, all at once. And a lot of it's because of [my girlfriend] Janet. I wouldn't get through it without her.