Bug in my code

Just spent countless hours over the past 10 days fighting a single bug in my next app. If you restarted the game, the app crashes. Took forever to figure out why. Turns out I was releasing memory that I shouldn’t have. That’s what I get for being a tidy programmer! UGH!

See yellow block at the end of the snippet below.

-(id) initWithParentNode:(CCNode*)parentNode Player:(NSInteger)player Icon:(NSInteger)icon Color:(NSInteger)color{
 
        // always call "super" init
        // Apple recommends to re-assign "self" with the "super" return value
        if( (self=[super init])) {             
       
        CGSize winSize = [[CCDirector sharedDirector] winSizeInPixels];
 
        NSString *strFile = [[NSString alloc] init];
       
        if ((color == -1) && (icon == -1))
            strFile = @"player_silver_car.png";
        else {
            switch (color)
            {
                case 0:
                    strFile = @"player_blue_";
                    break;
                case 1:
                    strFile = @"player_yellow_";
                    break;
                case 2:
                    strFile = @"player_red_";
                    break;
                case 3:
                    strFile = @"player_green_";
                    break;
            }
 
            switch (icon)
            {
                case kPlayerChicken:
                    strFile = [strFile stringByAppendingString:@"chicken.png"];
                    break;
                case kPlayerBoard:
                    strFile = [strFile stringByAppendingString:@"board.png"];
                    break;
                case kPlayerTruck:
                    strFile = [strFile stringByAppendingString:@"truck.png"];
                    break;
                case kPlayerCar:
                    strFile = [strFile stringByAppendingString:@"car.png"];
                    break;
            }
        }
       
        playerLap = 1;
        playerSwipes = 0;
        playerSprite = [CCSprite spriteWithFile:strFile];
       
        // Get Audio File
        audioSoundFile = [self getAudioFile:icon];
 
        // Load the Lap Sprites
//        CCFadeOut *fo = [CCFadeOut actionWithDuration:.1];
 
        lapSprite1 = [CCSprite spriteWithFile:@"lapindicator1.png"];
        lapSprite1.position = CGPointMake(winSize.width/2, winSize.height/2);
        lapSprite1.opacity = 0;
        lapSprite2 = [CCSprite spriteWithFile:@"lapindicator2.png"];
        lapSprite2.position = CGPointMake(winSize.width/2, winSize.height/2);
        lapSprite2.opacity = 0;
        lapSprite3 = [CCSprite spriteWithFile:@"lapindicator3.png"];
        lapSprite3.position = CGPointMake(winSize.width/2, winSize.height/2);
        lapSprite3.opacity = 0;
 
        [parentNode addChild:lapSprite1];
        [parentNode addChild:lapSprite2];
        [parentNode addChild:lapSprite3];
       
//        [lapSprite1 runAction:fo];
//        [lapSprite2 runAction:fo];
//        [lapSprite3 runAction:fo];
//        
        // Get start position from the bundle
        RaceLayer *rl = (RaceLayer*)parentNode;
        if (player == 1)
            startPoint = rl.currentTrack.startPosition1;
        else
            startPoint = rl.currentTrack.startPosition2;
        rl = nil;
 
        [playerSprite setPosition:startPoint];
             
        [parentNode addChild:playerSprite z:10 tag:kTagSpritePlayer + playerNumber];
        playerSprite.rotation = -90;
 
        playerStuckCount = 0;
        soundOn = true;
/*
 *   Keeping this here for posterity.  
 *   This one line actually creates a bug that prevents the screens from being reloaded
 *   It took me part-time work over 10 days to find this one error.  
 *   I had to completely rip the code apart and slowly add parts back until I found the bug.
 *   COCOS2D caches images so it only loads them once.
*    My assumption for the error is that by releasing the filename, when COCOS2D checks to see if the image is cached,
*    the memory has been released and it throws a "BAD_ACCESS" error but does NOT say why.
 *
        [strFile release];
*/        
        // Manually schedule update via the undocumented CCScheduler class.
        [[CCScheduler sharedScheduler] scheduleUpdateForTarget:self priority:0 paused:NO];
    }
   
    return self;
}