He searched for the words, and in the end, all he could keep coming up with was “crazy.”
That’s how Bobby Bode described the engine-detonating, body-shredding, fireball of a Funny Car final-round spectacle that capped his 20th-birthday weekend Sunday at the NHRA Spring Nationals at Houston Raceway Park.
“That was crazy. It was just a long weekend before that, and then on Sunday it was four rounds put together… it was just crazy,” he said Tuesday afternoon, declaring, “I’m still super-tired and wore out.”
By then he was back at Tempe, Ariz., with his mind on final exams in his economics, accounting, and business ethics classes at Arizona State University as much as it was about how he and his team are going to get his Mustang back on the racetrack. Thinking about his classroom obligations at that point were a distraction, as he still was processing the final few minutes of an already exhilarating breakout performance at the track where he made his October 2020 debut.
Bode, even today a relative newcomer to the Funny Car class, had won only one round of eliminations in his previous 14 races (he defeated Terry Haddock last fall at St. Louis). He didn’t enter the Gatornationals, but he had lost in the opening round in all three of his previous appearances this season. So even advancing to the final round – and against a three-time series champion, at that – was a huge accomplishment. Then to have it end in not only a devastating demise of all the team’s extraordinary work, but also the uncharacteristic display of raw emotion and the instant kudos from racing legend Tony Stewart, the whole incident was a lot to sort out.
What led up to the incident was a combination of Bode’s team going more rounds than ever before and then a massive thrash before the final call to the starting line, both of which can be taxing for a young team.
“We had a lot of work to do before the finals. We…
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