One,
Twice…
Geoff Bodine masters the Oxford 250 once
again and becomes the first repeat winner
Pictures Below Recap
Recounted by Mark Truman using Stock
Car Racing Magazine Recap, October 1981 by Herb Dodge
NOTE: Exact quotes from the magazine will be in italics!!
July 19, 1981 - Geoff Bodine returned to Oxford
Plains Speedway and came from the rear of the field on two separate occasions
to win the 8th Annual Oxford 250 and became the driver to win the
event back to back. He’s also the only
driver to win the race twice and proved his metal as a driver by overcoming all
obstacles, specifically southern bad boy Tommy Ellis, to take home a stunning
$21,400 payday. In the last eight
years, the Oxford 250 has become an event of tremendous importance. This year, Bill France Jr., flew up from
Daytona just to see it. Butch Lindley
built a special car just to run it, as did dozens of others. Lindley is especially anxious to win again
(he was the winner in 1976), after running out of gas on the last lap while
leading last year’s event. Lindley
finished his new car on the Friday before the race and did not have time to
paint it. “The only thing I know for
sure is that it’s got plenty of gas in it!” Lindley joked.
A topic that was a real hot button for the “stars” in the
event was the qualifying procedure. The
race is famous for its “luck-of-the-draw” lineups for heat races and its tough
and tumble action in trying to get into the feature. Good cars and drivers sometimes face the music and are forced
into the consolation rounds and don’t get the top starting spots. Tommy Ellis, who later became the most
controversial figure in the race, stated, “In practice we had the fastest care
here today. You can’t start from the
back in the heats. I’m just lucky to
make the field. We just got
f----ed!” Ellis started the 250 in the
33rd spot. The heats were
won by Bodine, Ron Barcomb, Stan Meserve, and Harvey Sprague. Robbie Crouch won the first consi, while
Dave Dion won the second. Top
competitors like Don Biederman, Ellis, Dick Glines, and Kim Wallace all had to
use the consolation round to get into the Oxford 250.
The drop of the green flag saw Bodine lead the way with
Barcomb and Stan Meserve in tow. By
lap five, local runner Meserve had moved in on Bodine’s bumper in his
fiberglass Buick Regal. Following these
two were Stub Fadden, Mike Barry, Barcomb, and Dick McCabe. Charging up through the pack from their rear
starting spots were Jeff Stevens and Don Biederman. Noticeably lacking in the charge was Tommy Ellis in the red No. 4
Buick. He had put on new tires for the
250 and they just would not hook up.
Bodine was lapping a struggling Ellis when the two rubbed fenders in turn
two, a seemingly harmless incident. But
the incident precipitated some major skirmishes.
Stevens, in one of the radical new fiberglass Buicks, was up
to second place by lap a lap 70 restart.
Meserve worked his way past Stevens and set his sights on Bodine. The $50 per lap leader bonus money was one
all of the driver’s minds. Barcomb,
Langis Caron, and Crouch were next in the running order. On lap 82, Meserve dropped out with
overheating problems. Bodine then
opened up a five car-length lead over Stevens, with Barcomb third. On lap 89, Crouch got by Caron for fourth
after starting the race in twenty-fifth spot. Stevens managed to keep close tabs on Bodine over the next 40
laps and even attempted to pass for the lead on occasion until lapped traffic
thwarted his moves. Bodine picked up
the $500 bonus for leading lap 125 (halfway).
The first of two serious incidents involving Bodine and
Ellis occurred. Bodine tried to lap
Ellis in turn on and the cars came together and they spun. All continued as the yellow flew. Bodine was no longer the leader, however, as
Stevens took over. Ellis
would later say, “Geoff Bodine is a good race driver in a good car. There is no sense, him running over the top
of somebody when you’re lapping him. It
was just a racing accident.” Bodine
decided to make a pit stop for tires and fuel under the resulting yellow. A few laps later, Ellis came in to change
right side tires on his ill-handling Buick.
As he motored down the pit road after the stop, he claimed someone threw
a “handful” of lug nuts at him, hitting him in the nose and eye. Ellis felt sure they came from Bodine’s
pit.
Stevens held the lead on the green flag with Barcomb
challenging. A few lapped cars behind
these two was Robbie Crouch in third.
Bodine was now sixteenth and Ellis right behind. About ten laps later, Ellis drove into the
left rear quarter panel of Bodine’s car, pushing him off the fourth turn. The record crowd went wild as the dust
cleared and both Ellis and Bodine continued without a yellow. On the next lap, Ellis got the black flag
and the crowd let out a rousing cheer.
Ellis pulled in and brought the car behind the pit wall. Bodine said, “Someone threw a lug nut at
Ellis when he was leaving the pits. He
got mad and took it out on me. He cost
us about $5,000. When we lost the lead,
we lost that lap money.” Bodine denies
that anyone on his crew threw anything at Ellis. Further reports after the race indicate a fracas broke out
when Ellis and his team went to visit Bodine’s pit. “We didn’t go down and bother them boys – that’s just a bunch
of crap,” stated Ellis. Still, there
were a lot of bruised and battered faces after the Oxford 250 if “nobody threw
nothin’.”
After the last on-track altercation with Ellis, Bodine found
himself at the rear of the field. When
Dion, Bill Dennis, and Biederman got together on lap 153 Stevens gave up the
lead, and his strategy to go the distance, and took on gas. Ron Barcomb and Crouch battled fiercely for
the top spot over the next 50 laps with Barcomb continuing to click off the $50
prize at the start\finish line. Meanwhile,
Bodine was charging up through the pack, with Stevens hanging on his
bumper. On lap 207, Barcomb sputtered
into the pits, out of gas, and he surrendered the lead to Robbie Crouch (NOTE: Hey!
This was precisely the moment that I became a Robbie Crouch fan…pretty
cool to see it documented!) Not far
behind were the cars of Bodine and Stevens. Another caution flew for a bad wreck involving Kim Wallace. Crouch opted to play his hand and stayed on
the track! It took only a few laps
for Bodine to catch Crouch and sneak under him to take the lead. Stevens followed Bodine through for
second. The final yellow came out with
only five laps to go. Dick McCabe
added some excitement over the final laps, despite being a lap down. He actually charged past Crouch and Stevens
and appeared to be chasing Bodine for the win.
The action jostled things up at the front and cost Stevens a spot to
Crouch in the final results. Stevens
felt that McCabe’s late charge cost him second. “I was under Crouch when McCabe went around him. Robbie had to
come down a little and I backed off.”
McCabe stated that he didn’t know if was a lap down or not. “I was just gonna go all I could go and get
all I could get.” It didn’t matter
much to the leader of the race, Bodine, as all of the action took place behind
him and he cruised to a repeat victory in the biggest short track event of the
year despite being spun from the lead on two different occasions.
Bodine said that after the second spin, he “just
concentrated on finding the right groove to go fast. My mother taught me never to give up. The yellows helped as I just hoped Robbie would run out of
tires.” He did. Said Crouch, “Maybe I just outsmarted myself
a bit by not pitting. Geoff had some
trouble and pitted. Maybe if I had
changed tires it would be different, but you make your decisions and stick with
them.”
CLOSING: Bodine was
clearly headed to an upper level NASCAR team and attributed his struggles to
catch on due to his Yankee upbringing. “They
still call me a Yankee. If you race up
north, you’re a Yankee. This is a
northern race. It’s a Yankee race. If
you’re a Yankee and you win Yankee races, you won’t get a Grand National
ride!” Ellis, of course, had better
things to come at the 250, but this was truly the start of a mutual dislike
between “Terrible” Tommy and the Oxford Plains crowd. Look at that list of drivers who were never even a factor in the
race! The also-rans in 1981 could have
comprised one of the top late model short track races all by themselves. A very similar performance would be put on by
Ralph Nason 17 years later when he was spun from the lead on two occasions and
managed to win.
8th Annual Oxford
250 Pictures
Geoff Bodine
at speed en route to win #2 Bill Dennis in the #81. Dion in the outside? Terrible
Tommy Ellis. Smile!
Bodine
pits. Did the crew throw lugnuts?