Bodines' Travelogue

Last week, Todd and Janet Bodine faced one of the most intense and personal situations in life, losing a parent. For this week's 11th chapter of the Bodine Family Travelogue, Todd wanted to pass on this message:

"My mom passed away on Friday night -- the night before the race at Martinsville. And given that it happened fairly suddenly -- 10 days before that Mom appeared to be virtually in perfect physical health -- it made it a little hard to take.

"Two Sundays before we went to Martinsville, all of Mom's vital signs were fine, but she started to feel badly. So my sister took her to get checked and she had to go into the hospital, finally, at the beginning of the week of the Martinsville race. In the end, honestly, we were glad that she didn't spend a long time suffering.

"It's one of those typical events in life that everyone goes through, but it doesn't make it any easier for anyone. It makes you want to walk away from everything, to just surround yourself with the people who mean the most to you to sort out how you feel, to do what you need to do.

"For us, this past week has been a time to just privately deal with things in our own way. But as you know, with our Truck Series season in the middle of its most critical part, life can't stop. We're in Talladega this weekend to try to regain Victory Lane at a race we won with Germain Racing in October 2008 -- because that's what we do.

"But Janet and I wanted to tell everyone -- all our friends and fans and everyone who's taken a minute out of their own busy days to think about us, to pray for us and my mom and our family -- 'Thank you from the bottom of our hearts.' Because you'll never know how much strength and comfort that provided us at a time when we really needed it.

"Continue supporting us, and we'll look forward to things getting back to normal, on the road, next week."

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
Week 10: Gambling and plenty of partying caps hiatus; on to Martinsville