1,000 Greatest Drivers: Geoff Bodine

Almost certainly the driver closest to me geographically on the list.

I wrote this during the extended red flag period of the Daytona 500 and then I started cutting the fat during each caution period. Bodine’s final win at Watkins Glen was one of the first NASCAR races I ever watched because my dad didn’t have cable at the time and I was at my mom’s for some reason even though back then I almost always went to my dad’s on weekends. I remember my mom and her boyfriend and I were watching the race and her boyfriend was parodying the song “My Bonnie”:

Labonte lies over the ocean /
Labonte lies over the sea

Etc… etc… I liked Bodine more than I should have probably because we were both upstate New Yorkers but as I learned more about his past history, I definitely stopped liking him as much. I always rated him very highly based on his ability to win in questionable cars, but as with Ricky Rudd, I think I historically overrated him because I used to talk about drivers who did well on road courses and short tracks as if they were “real talents” while the drivers who dominated on superspeedways weren’t. Ever since I realized I was wrong to do that, I’ve rated him lower historically than I used to, but I still consider him to be a legend.