Bodines' Travelogue

With the exception of a championship-clinching event, last weekend's jaunt to Las Vegas, coincidentally the home of Las Vegas Motor Speedway, is without question Todd and Janet Bodine's favorite.

As far as the race went, it was a giant step toward Todd's second Truck Series championship, as he took advantage of crew chief Mike Hillman Jr. gutting-it-up three days after surgery on his lower leg and foot to come to Vegas.

Todd and Janet Bodine made a trip to the Barrett-Jackson auto auction while in Las Vegas.

And once he did, Bodine made it count when it mattered the most, scoring a fourth-place finish that increased his advantage on Aric Almirola to 262 points.

But to the Bodines, the Vegas atmosphere was almost as big a deal as what occurred at the race track and, despite old Truck Series buddy Brendan Gaughan's charity bowling tournament getting canceled unexpectedly, they had a great time.

So in week seven of the Bodines' Travelogue, we ride along as Todd and Janet marvel at Hillman Jr.'s pain tolerance, wine and dine the crew a little bit, enjoy some quality time with Truck racing foes and anticipate that missed trip to Pennsylvania, that'll now come to fruition.

Winding down & traveling right

Todd Bodine: Janet and I flew out ourselves on a commercial flight on Tuesday.

Janet Bodine: The flight to Vegas was awesome. We wanted to get there early because Brendan Gaughan and his dad, Michael, always take care of us real well at the South Point Hotel & Casino. I wanted to check with Brendan and make sure everybody's rooms were all OK.

Todd Bodine: Brendan was gonna have to have a short week in Vegas because Rusty [Wallace's] team had a Nationwide race in Dover. That was too bad -- we really miss having Brendan racing in the Truck Series.

Janet Bodine: That's for sure, but we checked into the South Point, where Todd and I had an awesome suite; before we had dinner Tuesday night with Brendan and his wife, Tatum, at Don Vito's. That's a great Italian restaurant at the South Point. And that was an absolutely wonderful time.

Todd Bodine: On Wednesday, the Hornadays flew in with some friends of theirs, the Lancasters and the Morrises.

Janet Bodine: The Lancasters own Jeffrey's Restaurant in Mooresville [N.C.] and Bob Morris owns Morris Stoneworks. Every year, we do a trip to Vegas with that whole group, and we just hang out and have a blast.

Todd Bodine: It was a little bit harder this time, because there was 14 of them.

Janet Bodine: After they got in, we hung out at the hotel for a while and then went on a little casino-crawl. Along the way, we added our Truck Series rookie of the year contender, Justin Lofton, and some of his crew to the group -- and finally ended up at Margaritaville.

Todd Bodine: We had a deal set up for Thursday to go out bombing around in the desert with Justin, so it was perfect timing.

Not your average sand rail

Janet Bodine: I thought Todd was going out in the desert with Justin to ride around on dune buggies.

Todd Bodine: It wasn't no dune buggy -- it was a $500,000 Trophy Truck. You know, the kind Robby Gordon races off-road. Well, that's the same place Justin came from and when we knew we had this race on the schedule, Justin called up the guy that he used to race for and got him to bring one of the trucks over so he could give some rides out in the desert.

Janet Bodine: Todd wasn't too keen on driving it though.

Todd Bodine: We were about 30 miles outside Vegas and it was pretty cool. But you're right, I didn't have much interest in borrowing a $500,000 truck to drive -- especially out there. Everything about it was different -- it's got 30 inches of shock travel, but it goes through five-foot dips like they're not even there. So I enjoyed riding along with Justin.

Janet Bodine: And that was pretty cool, because by then Brendan had already had to fly back to North Carolina, so I was able to have some down time with Tatum, who's getting real close to her due date for having their first child. (Continued)