Spin to Win- Bodine Wins at Kentucky

Todd Bodine experienced the rare “spin and win” Friday evening during the “Built Ford Tough 225” at the Kentucky Speedway.

Bodine was in the lead when Kyle Busch passed him to the outside coming off turn four, possibly taking the air off of Bodine’s truck causing the spin. Bodine spun in front of the entire field but kept the truck off the wall and out of harm’s way.  Since he flat spotted the tires he pitted for fuel and tires and moved to the rear of the field.

The race would go green the rest of the way and the leaders needed fuel as Bodine nursed his throttle to save fuel.

In victory lane Bodine was not happy with Busch saying, “I’d like to thank Kyle for driving dirty and pushing us down. That made us get the gas. Unfortunately, I’ve always had a lot of respect for Kyle,” Bodine said. “Slowly but surely I’m losing it.” Those comments apparently angered Busch who went to victory lane and had a discussion with Bodine.

“We didn’t get into the fence with the spin,” Bodine said. “So our misfortune became our fortune tonight.   Spinning out was what gave us the fuel to get to the end because we didn’t get into the fence. The guys did a great job fixing the truck and everything fell the way we needed it. The race went green the whole way and everybody else had to pit under green.”

Bodine, who has won three of the last five series events said, “You never give up. We had a good enough truck to get through the field and pass those guys. I started pedaling with about 20 to go to save fuel and we had enough to get to the end,” Bodine said.

Second place went to Johnny Sauter which was his second straight top five  and third one in the past four races.

“The guys made a great call to bring me down (pit road) to get gas and tires there,” Sauter said. “We kind of had a hunch we would be going green the rest of the way there. I argued with them and they made the right call. We had a fourth-, fifth-place truck the all night and we got second out of it. We just have to keep going on to our next race and I think I am pretty damn good there so I may win that race.”

Busch dominated the race after taking the lead on lap 55 , leading the most laps. He appeared to be ready to dominate the race like he had at Bristol and Chicago the prior tow outings. The problem was his truck needed fuel and he surrendered the lead when he pitted for fuel with 23 laps remaining in the race.

Other notables were Aric Almirola (3rd)  who earned his sixth consecutive top-10 finish. Almirola is second in points, 261 back. Jason White (4th) tied his best finish of the season and Ricky Carmichael (5th) earned his third career top-five finish and scored his second-best finish this season. He had finished 4^th earlier this season in Dover.   

Busch finished the race in 7^th.

Unofficial Results