Geoffrey Bodine drove the Team EJP Racing Chevrolet Silverado to a 21st-place finish in the first ever NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series event at the Atlanta Motor Speedway on Saturday.  Bodine, who started 24th, fought a mysterious handling condition throughout the race that hampered the team’s effort to repeat their top-10 performance at the season opener in Daytona last month.

“I don’t know what the problem was,” Bodine said.  “It could be any one of a million things.  It could be a chassis issue, or it could be the shock package wasn’t exactly right, or an aerodynamic problem, or a combination.  The setup we had worked very well for them at Homestead last fall, but it could be that it wasn’t what we needed here for Atlanta.  But the only way we’ll ever really find out is if we test this truck somewhere else.  Right now, we’re just puzzled.

“It doesn’t do me any good to get mad about it,” Bodine continued, “but what it really does is embarrass me.  We should have been a lot better than that, and when you struggle to run 30th the way we did early in the race, it is really embarrassing.”

With the disappointment of Atlanta in the rearview mirror, Bodine now looks forward to the next race on the schedule, the Kroger 250 at one of his favorite tracks, Martinsville Speedway on Saturday April 17.

“I’ve won a lot of races at Martinsville in just about every class of car I’ve raced down there,” he said.  “The only one I didn’t get is a Truck win, but I was pretty close to getting one before we got knocked out of the way coming to the white flag.  Its slippery, hard to get stopped, and difficult to get the car or truck turned, and that is what I like about the place.  I won my first Cup race there 20 years ago, and it’s my birthday the day after the race.  It’s going to be a big weekend, that’s for sure.  We want to get that one win we are missing down there.”

The Kroger 250 will be seen live on Speed Channel and broadcast live on MRN Radio affiliates and XM Satellite Radio nationwide starting at 1 pm ET on April 17.