John Bodnar, SCCA’s 2025 Worker of the Year Presented by Mazda for Timing & Scoring, was focused on building a 1986 Honda Civic Si for HillClimbs when, in December 2009, he was seriously injured in a major car wreck on the street. “A lady pulled out in front of me, messed me up pretty good,” the North Carolina Region member relates.
Still rehabbing as spring became summer in 2010, anxious to compete but with the HillClimb car sitting incomplete, impatience as much as anything led him to enter a local autocross with another all-original ’86 Civic.
And he had a blast.
“I really enjoyed it, had fun,” he says. “But when I started, I still had my leg injury from the wreck, so I couldn't shag cones – I couldn't do that. So I asked the volunteer coordinators, ‘Where can I be?’ And they're like, ‘Are you any good with computers?’”
Bodnar, a software developer and database administrator, said, “‘Yeah, I’m pretty good with computers, familiar with them.’ ‘Good! You're in timing,’ they told me.”
One Thing Leads to Another
Fifteen years later, he’s now vastly experienced in timing at both autocross and at the racetrack, and has lost none of his enthusiasm, whether for driving or working.
The knee injury legacy of that ’09 accident forced him to give up his conventional mountain bike in favor of an e-bike. But otherwise, he says, there are no issues with being on his feet all day, and he quickly picked up additional volunteer skills beyond timing.
“In like 2012, 2013, friends and I used to drive up to VIRginia International Raceway and work corners, flagging,” he says. “For years, I didn't know the timing crew for road racing.”
Bodnar wound up connecting with that North Carolina Region (NCR) SCCA Road Racing crew, though, when the Region first started hosting Time Trials.
The T&S regulars were well set up for the “normal” Time Attacks and Time Trials stuff, “but they wanted to add a TrackSprint portion, which required more of an autocross timing setup,” he explains. “So, the first several Time Trials we did, I would take our timing hardware up from autocross to set up and time the TrackSprints.
“Pretty soon, I got pulled upstairs to check out the Time Attack portion of the event, and they groomed me very quickly into taking on that role.”
Schedule Juggling
Today, he’s the Timing Chief for all three programs in the big Mid-Atlantic States region, which means some serious time juggling around his own autocross schedule. From 2010-’11, Bodnar ran his ’86 Civic Si in Street and Street Touring; in 2012, he kicked his effort up a notch.
“I bought back my very first Honda, an ’84 1500S that I had sold in 2002, and, within 30 days of getting the car back, my daughter Ashlee and I swapped all the parts from the ’86 Si I was wanting to use for HillClimbs into it in time for the first event of 2012.
“The funny thing is, remember I said I was building a car for HillClimb? Well, I’ve never done a HillClimb…”
With a 2.0L B20Z engine and the Civic rebadged from 1500S to 2000S, Bodnar ran it for three seasons. He parked it in 2015, ordering a new Ford Focus RS and co-driving other people’s cars (“Miata, Evo, Focus, Fiesta, WRX are the ones I remember”) until the new car was finally delivered June 2016.
This year, he has a new project: To celebrate the late July return of North Carolina Region’s primary autocross venue, Cherry Point (which had been unavailable for several years). At the time this article was written (which was prior to the event), John was planning on dusting off the Civic, parked since 2014.
“Tires for the Honda are a lot cheaper than the Ford,” he explains, “and my daughter Ashlee is going in on [a fresh set] with me on this one because she's going to race with me as well – and she likes the Honda better.”
Ashlee, a graduate of the NASCAR Technical Institute, “was in the garage with me before she could drive. She would go to the races with me, and while I was setting up the timing gear, she was prepping the car, switching the tires to the race tires at the event ‘cause back then I didn’t have a trailer.
“Once she got her learner's permit, she started co-driving. Then she graduated, went off to school.”
Reunited, they are a fun father/daughter team.
Staying Busy
Bodnar almost always works timing even when he’s competing.
“I do work the timing. I’ll do all the setup, and I make sure I'm in timing for the first session to see that things are going smoothly. But I have enough people now who I trust. We know who’s in what classes, so we make sure those classes aren't in the same run groups. And we've always made that work.
“As the chief, I have to set up the event in the computer beforehand and do the results afterwards, make sure all the points get updated and sent to the Region web masters.”
Fluent in all manner of T&S speak, Bodnar’s reputation as a “solutions guy” played a big part in his receiving the SCCA Worker of the Year recommendation. Among the many highlights: A Google Docs-plus-10-key solution to a tricky situation at a recent VIR National Championship Runoffs, enabling the T&S crew in the South Tower to receive live timing data from the North Tower timing loop.
Like many others in the Club these days, Bodnar thinks constantly about ways to attract and keep new people.
“Yeah, that's something I'm curious about. To my mind, the first thing is just to invite them – try to get 'em there. That’s something I picked up from [NCR’s ‘super volunteer’] Megan Tyler. She has worked almost everywhere at a Club race – F&C, T&S, Grid, Registration, just to name what I'm sure of – and she uses that experience to help guide new people to roles they might be especially interested in.
“Once they're there, listen to 'em,” Bodnar goes on. “I find that a lot of the younger people, especially those my daughter's age, really like you to take what they say seriously even though they may not have as much experience as you. Hear them out; don’t be dismissive.
“Outside of that, it's hard to say. In T&S, it feels easier to get volunteers these days than other groups – I think because they're so used to technology and computers.
Bodnar was not at last year’s SCCA Runoffs when the Workers of the Year were announced: “I wish I had gone to that event, but the out-of-state races or the ones that are far away are more of a challenge for me to get to. I've worked only the Runoffs at VIR, but I plan to work the ones when they get back to Road Atlanta.”
He’s uncomfortable with the recognition: “I don't feel I've been doing it as long as a lot of other people who've gotten that award. I don't know…I guess maybe I just jumped in very deep very quickly.”
Thoughtful, efficient, competitive, and enthusiastic – John Bodnar has set the bar high.
But will he ever get to compete in a HillClimb? Stay tuned.
Photo of John Bodnar with his daughter Ashlee courtesy John Bodnar
