Q&A: Brett Bodine.

Brett Bodine, driver of the No. 11 Wells Fargo Financial Taurus, was among the fastest Fords in yesterday's [Thursday's] first practice session. Bodine spoke about his test and the importance of posting a solid qualifying speed for the Daytona 500.

Q:
Brett Bodine [No. 11 - Wells Fargo Financial Taurus] - You ended practice early Wednesday and said you had a good idea of where you are and Thursday you were in the top 10 in speed. What's the car like?

Robert Wilkins_1

11 Jan 2002

Brett Bodine:
I think we've got a good race car. Compared to the Fords, I think we're as good as any Ford here. We'll find out about next week, but we're behind. The Chevrolets can run consistently fast at will, so there is definitely a discrepancy here in the aero rules. I'm sure NASCAR is going to look at it and try to get the field as level as possible for the 500.

Q:
The Chevrolet people say there is sandbagging going on. How do you respond?

BB:
The fastest teams are always gonna say the other group is sandbagging and the slower group is gonna say they need some help. I just know what my car is doing and that's all we've got. I don't know if that's all they've got, but they're still faster than I am. In the wind tunnel, we were told that we had as good, if not the best, Ford so we should be one of the best cars here. It translates that if we're the best car, then we definitely need some help.

Q:
If you were sandbagging would you tell us?

BB:
Absolutely. I don't have anything to gain by it. I still need sponsorship. I've got to do the best I can to try and make our package for our sponsors look the best. That's what I'm up against as an owner. If I was just a driver, I don't know if the owner is telling them to sandbag, but in our case that's not happening because this is all we've got.

Q:
You have only one car here while everyone else has two. Why?

BB:
That's all we had time to build. We wanted to concentrate on one good piece. We feel like we need to come down here and try to qualify as good as we can to help ourselves get in the Daytona 500. Hopefully we've got a car that can qualify in the top 20. We were the 20th-fastest here last year and that wasn't fast enough, so we've got to be somewhere in that top 20 and, hopefully, we've got a race car that can do that.

Q:
What about having the mixed test session?

BB:
I think NASCAR is gonna get a lot more information out of this. I think this is the best thing they've ever done because we're here on equal days at the same time and they get a chance to look at what's going on. People are going to point the finger and say certain cars are sandbagging and some aren't, but I know one thing, the 11 team isn't.