NASCAR Truck

Kentucky: Winner interview

TODD BODINE, No. 30 Germain.com Toyota Tundra, Germain Racing Finishing Position: 1st How does it feel to get your first win at Kentucky? "The first person I have to thank is Kyle Busch for driving dirty, sucking me down and getting me spun ...

Published: Sep 4, 2010, 7:43 PM

Copy link

Share on Viber

Add as a preferred source

TODD BODINE, No. 30 Germain.com Toyota Tundra, Germain Racing
Finishing Position: 1st

How does it feel to get your first win at Kentucky?

"The first person I have to thank is Kyle Busch for driving dirty, sucking me down and getting me spun out to give us the gas. That's why we won the race. We had a great truck, don't get me wrong, this Toyota Tundra was incredibly fast. When I got up behind Kyle (Busch), we got aero tight, which that's what happens. I backed off kind of riding there trying to keep the right front out and wait for later. Low and behold we got sucked around, got some fuel and here we are in victory lane. This is awesome. I have to thank all the fans -- Kentucky fans here are awesome. Everybody watching on T.V., thank you. This Toyota Tundra is awesome."

How was your crew able to repair your truck and get you back to the front of the field?

"That's every week. I say it every time we get up here, but these guys are incredible. We beat everyone out when we took fuel only. That was part of what got us out front. These guys are awesome. They do a great job in the shop, they do a great job on pit road every week. That's what makes a great championship team is consistency. They may not be the fastest, although they are, but they're consistent. They don't make mistakes. That's what you have to do, not make mistakes."

Does this win affect your championship chances for this season?

"No, you can't because anything can happen. Just like getting sucked around, luckily we didn't back it into the wall. If we would have backed it into the wall, we wouldn't be sitting in victory lane, that's luck. That's racing luck. That's what you have to have to be able to get a championship. It was an incredible night. Believe it or not, this is the first time that all of my owners have been at a race that we've won. All three Germain brothers are here and it's awesome."

What did Kyle Busch tell you when he came to victory lane after the race?

"He wasn't happy that I called him out on T.V. It's a shame, he's such a good kid. When you get him away from this racing atmosphere and he's off just being Kyle (Busch), he's a good kid and he's a lot of fun. I've been there with him. You put him behind the wheel and he thinks he owns the race track. He doesn't cut anybody a break. If this was an isolated incident, I'd let it slide and wouldn't worry about it, but he drives that way in every division, every week."

How were you able to recover from a spin and still win the race?

"That's the way the trucks are. If somebody runs down tight on your quarter panel, you get loose. We got a great run on Kyle (Busch) on the restart and he ran me tight through (turns) three and four and I was just hanging on and finally just came around on me. That's our misfortune turned into our fortune because that's what gave us the little extra fuel that we needed to get to the end. I pedaled pretty hard about 20 laps to go and (Mike Hillman) Junior (crew chief) kept reminding me to pedal and about the last 10 laps I just rode around here half throttle. We had such a big lead and he was telling me how far we had. I just kept pedaling and going and we had enough fuel. We had a great truck. The Germain Tundra was incredible. We struggled in practice and couldn't get it to drive the way I wanted it. We kept working on it and working on it. We did some serious stuff before the race and we didn't touch it all night. It was that good. It's unusual to have that. We had that good a Tundra all night."

***

MIKE HILLMAN JR., crew chief, No. 30 Germain.com Toyota Tundra, Germain Racing

How were you able to keep Todd Bodine calm after he spun out during the race?

"You don't have to keep Todd (Bodine) calm. He does a great job. He took a deep breath, took his time coming back through there. We lost a panel when we spun out and the guys did a great job of getting it put back together and making sure it would make it the rest of the way and conform to the rules so we wouldn't have any issues. I'm just so proud of the guys. They worked so hard this week. We had a little damage after Chicago on Saturday night, met the truck driver at the shop and before we went home Saturday night it was ready for the body shop. The body shop came in Sunday painted it and Monday we were putting a motor back in it. Some people would have said let's take the other truck but these guys won't. They never stop working -- they give you 110 percent all the time and I'm proud to be a part of it."

STEVE GERMAIN, crew chief, No. 30 Germain.com Toyota Tundra, Germain Racing

What is it like for this to be the first time that all three Germain brothers to be together for one of Todd Bodine's wins?

"It was fun to have both my brothers there and a couple of wives were there as well. It was a lot of fun and I'm very proud of Todd (Bodine), Mike (Hillman Jr., crew chief) and the whole team. We've got a great team this year. The pit crew does a wonderful job. To have all of us here tonight was a lot of fun."

-source: toyota motorsports

We want your opinion!

What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?

Take our 5 minute survey.

- The Motorsport.com Team

Read and post comments

Share Or Save This Story

Copy link

Share on Viber

Previous article Kentucky: Final practice times

Next article Kentucky: Kyle Busch race report

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

View More & Comment

Latest news

Cleetus McFarland “pissed” after early Talladega NASCAR Truck crash

NASCAR Truck

NSTR NASCAR Truck

Talladega

9 min

Cleetus McFarland “pissed” after early Talladega NASCAR Truck crash

F1 United States GP live commentary and updates - FP2 begins

Formula 1

F1 Formula 1

United States GP

55 min

F1 United States GP live commentary and updates - FP2 begins

Exploring Ferrari's 'less than a tenth' US GP update package

Formula 1

F1 Formula 1

United States GP

1 h

Exploring Ferrari's 'less than a tenth' US GP update package

F1 United States GP: Charles Leclerc pips Max Verstappen to top FP1

Formula 1

F1 Formula 1

United States GP

2 h

F1 United States GP: Charles Leclerc pips Max Verstappen to top FP1

Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.

From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.

You have 2 options:

Become a subscriber.
Disable your adblocker.

Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here

Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page

Manage Alerts