Partnership gives Bodine chance to race for wins

Todd Bodine doesn't know exactly what his racing future holds beyond 2011.

The reigning Camping World Truck Series champion is holding fast to what he does know, however: He'll be a participant in each of this season's remaining Truck Series events.

Just two weeks ago, no such assurance existed.

With his Germain Racing team lacking sponsorship for eight of the 15 races that still remained, Bodine faced the grim reality of having to skip the July 16 event at Iowa Speedway, which would have marked the first time since 2004 that he had missed a Truck race.

But two days before the Iowa race, Germain and Randy Moss Motorsports officials announced a "collaborative effort" to field a truck Bodine in that weekend's event.

That truck -- a No. 5 Toyota -- is the one Bodine will drive in Friday night's AAA Insurance 200 at Lucas Oil Raceway in Indianapolis and for the rest of the season as Germain and Randy Moss Motorsports split the sponsorship load.

"We were going to sit some races out," said the two-time Truck champion and 21-time series winner. "Actually we were planning on sitting eight races out because those were the eight races we didn't have covered for sponsorship."

"Going to the race track is better than sitting home for sure. It's better for the team, better for the sponsors. It was pretty disheartening on the Tuesday before Iowa."

Bodine will carry sponsorship from Big Red this weekend. The remaining races will be covered by Randy Moss team sponsor International Trucks/Monaco RVs, along with Germain sponsors Tire Kingdom/Service Central and Valvoline.

"I actually knew nothing about it until it was a done deal, and it only happened like in three days," said Bodine, who is mired back in 10th in the standings, 81 points out of the lead. "They had a lot of things to do other than worry about telling me what was going on. They just had to get it done, so it was a pretty quick deal. They basically talked on Saturday and it was done by Wednesday."

Bodine, who made his first NASCAR national-series appearance in 1986 and has logged 741 starts between the Cup, Nationwide and Truck series, understands as well as anyone the ups and downs that big-time auto racing can bring.

And that makes him even more thankful he's still racing.

"The way this sport is you never know what's going to happen," he said. "You never know which direction it's going to go. And you have to able to adjust your plans and change direction quickly. It's hard to understand that if you're not in the sport. The way the economy is right now makes it even harder to be able to have something solid and secure."

Just being able to race isn't enough to satisfy Bodine. The 47-year-old wants to run up front and contend for victories.

After an unforgettable 2010 in which he won four times and ran away with the series title, Bodine has struggled this season.

Prior to the Germain-Moss pairing, Bodine had finished no better than third in 10 starts. Since the new arrangement, he's finished 10th at Iowa and sixth last weekend at Nashville.

"We expect more out of ourselves than just a top 10," he said. "We're going to win some races -- there's no doubt about that. That's what we're about but to go through what we've been through and come through the other side and have the deal we have, it would be pretty special to be able to do that."

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