Sometimes life around racing just gets too overwhelming -- with everything you want to do battling what you need to do and the unexpected cropping up in the middle of it all.

The four-week hiatus from competition epitomized that for Todd and Janet Bodine. Todd has said he's plenty ready to get back to racing, even though Martinsville Speedway -- site of Saturday's Kroger 200 -- hasn't been the source of many of his best results.

The Bodines attended the Hornaday's Halloween party.

“

Todd went as Homer Simpson and, uh, I was just clowning around.

”

-- JANET BODINE

Bodine has a 262-point lead over Aric Almirola with five races remaining, so he was anticipating the team's recent test at "Little Rock," the Martinsville copy laid-out behind Andy Hillenburg's Rockingham Speedway.

That was one of the tie-ups to Bodine's planned schedule. The team had the test scheduled at Rockingham last Thursday, but was rained-out. Consequently, they went over on Friday to do their last-minute preparation for Martinsville.

So there wasn't much "travel" in week 10 of the Bodines' Travelogue. And with all the planned and unplanned events that completely tied up Todd, it was left to Janet to do a limited narrative on the recent events.

"There are lots of worse things in life," Janet said. "But last week I had some kind of glitch with my phone and missed a few days of texts, emails and calls. That was a lot of fun to get caught up on.

"Last week Todd had the chance to mix-and-match some Camping World Trucks with the Nationwide Series. When their test rained-out he took advantage of that to spend the day at Charlotte working with our Germain Racing teammate, Michael Annett, on the Nationwide car.

"As we expected, Michael's coach driver spent the week with us at our house and we threw a birthday party for him last Sunday. No question, that was a lot better than being out on the road and trying to do something.

"It was a good couple weeks for parties. We had my nephew Tim's 30th birthday party up at my mom's in Pennsylvania and that was a good time -- and spending time with my great-nephew Colton was awesome.

"Bobby Soper and Dale Rapson with the Wilkes-Barre Mohegan Sun were awesome hosts and the big trotting horse event was flawless. Don't you know our gambling luck continued? Todd picked by the stats and I picked by names. Let's just say the name game worked.

"Now, you all know Notre Dame was playing at the same time, and we went to the trotters figuring there would be no problem watching the game on a TV at the sports book. But from some reason the Notre Dame game wasn't on and so, for the first time in a long time, I missed watching -- but my brother Lenny was updating us throughout the game, so no worries.

"Wrapping it up on the party front was the Hornaday's Halloween party. What an awesome time that was. Lindy and Ron go all-out for that one, and it was pretty awesome, as usual, to see all your friends in their costumes. And what did we do? Todd went as Homer Simpson and, uh, I was just clowning around.

"This has been an interesting week. [Mike Hillman] Junior's youngest daughter Mylee had surgery at Presbyterian Hospital in Charlotte and that went real well. Mike has been continuing to improve -- he's still getting around in his 'moon boot' and his little roller cart. Our prayers go out to both of them.

"We've loaded up the coach and are heading to Martinsville. Of course, this will be the weekend us and the Hornadays make all of the plans for Talladega, which will be our second road trip in a row. The only wish we had is that the Spragues were with us -- we really miss having Jack around, but anyway, the plan is to leave on Wednesday, next week to go to Alabama."

Related:
Week 1: Never a dull moment as family treks in search of title
Week 2: At Bristol with friends, family and a fan knocking at door
Week 3: On the road without the coach leaves a lot to be desired
Week 4: After win at Kentucky, time to stop and reflect -- and shop
Week 5: Pushing aside Cup dalliance to focus on stretch run
Week 6: Night spent at hospital with Hillman limits free time in New Hampshire
Week 7: Couple marvels at crew chief's tolerance, wine and dine the crew
Week 8: Downtime means still traveling, changing plans,preparing for the future
Week 9: Preparing for holidays, Hornadays and happy days