It will be several more weeks before Brett Bodine Racing gears up for its return to the Winston Cup Series, team spokeswoman Carolyn Carrier said Wednesday night from her North Carolina home. “I know a lot of people have been asking, but it’s just taking longer to get everything in place,” she said. “It’s business, and sometimes those things take awhile.” Bodine hasn’t raced since losing his Hooters sponsorship in June. He signed a two-year sponsorship deal with a still unnamed company on Aug. 12.[He did make an attempt in the #4 Kodak Pontiac at Pocono but didn’t qulaify]. The team had initially hoped to compete in this weekend’s Southern 500 in Darlington. Those plans have been scrapped so the sponsor, which is new to NASCAR, can finalize its marketing plan. “They are new in racing and just trying to get everything done and do it right,” Carrier said. Carrier said it is difficult to say for sure when Bodine might make his return but said it could be “two or three more weeks.” “We’ll announce who the sponsor is once we decide when the (first) race will be,” she said. “We’ll make a big announcement, probably the week before (we race).” Carrier said the earliest Bodine could have his No. 11 Ford Taurus on the track again would be the Sylvania 300 in Loudon, N.H., on Sept. 14, or the Dover 400 in Dover, Del., on Sept. 21. “We have to wait to see how quickly things come together,” Carrier said. “We’re trying to get everything done, and do it right.” Carrier said the team has yet to hire new people and begin to upgrade its equipment since signing the sponsorship deal. “We’re just trying to get everything together to figure out what we need and how we are going to approach it,” Carrier said. “We don’t want to come back and not have everything ready to go.”( Elmira Star Gazette )(8-28-2003)
