A number of fans have had questions about the status of Jim Bodnar's Supermodified Team and his plans for 2019. See below for a Q&A with the Legendary Supermodified builder.
Question: What’s the status of your team and your cars?
Jim: As most fans know, I sold “Fire” to Jim Paller after the 2017season. He went on to have a very successful 2018 season with an MSS feature win and second place in the MSS Season Point’s Championship. At the end of the 2018 racing season, I sold Ice to another local Ohio Team. I am excited for the coming year for these two teams and I will spend some of my time supporting them.
Question: Can you share with us who bought Ice?
Jim: I’m sorry, it’s not my place to say.
Question: What caused you to sell both cars?
Jim: When I sold “Fire” in 2017, it was to downsize a little. We ran ISMA full time in 2015 and 2016 and won the ISMA championship both years. In 2017, DJ was considering a run for the Oswego championship with John Nicotra and to be honest, some of the decisions ISMA made in2017 made it hard for us to support the full ISMA schedule. So we backed off a little in 2017?
Question: What about 2018?
Jim: Let me start by saying that Doc Hathaway has done an outstanding job addressing the issues ISMA had the previous years. ISMA in 2018 was much better off than it was in 2017. They have worked tirelessly to get inputs from the owners and make decisions that are in the best interest of the series. I would have loved to support a full season
in 2018 and make a run for a third ISMA championship as well as support some MSS races.
Question: It’s been rumored that you’ve had some health issues. Is that what sidelined you for some of the races this year?
Jim: No, I actually felt better this year than I have the last couple of years. We didn’t make it to all the ISMA shows because of driver scheduling conflicts between Oswego and ISMA. In the end, I made the call to sell “Ice” at the end of this season, because I didn’t want to run part time again in 2019. I’m kind of an all or nothing kind of guy. I consistently put in 60-70 hours per week in the garage year-round. In my opinion, it’s not worth this doing as a crew chief and car owner if we are only going to race part time.
Question: Does that mean retirement for you?
Jim: Hahahaha, no. Not yet. I drew out the design for Fire in the Fall of 2012 and
built it in the winter of 2012-2013. That was my 23rd Supermodified. In the summer of 2013, I made improvements to the design and those new drawings became my 24th Super in the winter of 2013-2014 which we named “Ice”. The design for Ice is five and a half years-old. Every year, since 2012, I have drawn out a new and improved Winged
Supermodified and, for fun, I’ve also drawn out a new Oswego Supermodified each year. There are five versions of a better design in my basement waiting to be built.
Question: And, is it being built?
Jim: Yes, I am building a car this winter. This car will be my 25th Supermodified and will see some racing action in 2019.
Question: Is it for DJ and Acme racing?
Jim: No. Rumor has it and after talking to some of my suppliers, Acme Racing is trying to clone my previous car. They’ve literally tried to order some of the exact same custom machined pieces that I designed. There are a number of photos of "ICE" out there of the frame during powder coating, close ups of the suspension, general layout of all the components and even the wing design. I am not a fan seeing cars being cloned, especially mine (hahaha). These guys need to try some of their own ideas.
Question: So how is it between you and DJ?
Jim: DJ is a great driver. Next question.
Question: Anything else we should know?
Jim: Yes, 2019 is going to be a great year for Supermodified racing
|