Legendary Wood Brothers Racing in perilous position
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Wood Brothers Racing seems like it can’t buy a break these days. It needs a big one Thursday to make it into the Daytona 500.
For perhaps the first time ever, the legendary team is in danger of missing NASCAR’s biggest race.
After failing to crack the top 35 in owner points last season, the team is not guaranteed a starting spot in the first five races, including the 50th Daytona 500. It is depending on veteran Bill Elliott to race his way into the 500 through Thursday’s Gatorade Duel qualifying races – a major challenge with several other teams in the same situation.
The team had a gear problem during qualifying Sunday, causing Elliott to wind up 45th among 53 drivers. He will start 21st in Thursday’s first qualifier and will need to finish first or second among the nine drivers in his race that are not in the top 35.
The situation has put tremendous pressure on the Wood Brothers team.
“I’ve been down here the last couple of years and our cars really weren’t that fast, but at least we had the top 35 thing to rely on and they raced well,” team co-owner Eddie Wood said. “I guess the really aggravating thing about it is that we’ve got a fast car and we just didn’t get to use it in qualifying because something went wrong.
“I don’t really have an answer for what really happened to it, but a lot of times when you’re out of the top 35 and you’ve got to do everything you can do, you do more than you normally would. You wouldn’t have gone to extremes on friction and speed. Let’s say there are 10 things you can do to make a difference over and above a guy that’s in the top 35. If you do all 10 of them and all 10 of them work, that’s great but sometimes they’ll bite you and that’s pretty much what happened to us.
“It’s almost like trying too hard. But if you hadn’t gone through that and you missed the race by half-a-tenth of one-one-thousandth, then you would have been like, ‘Man, if I had only done that.’ It’s a stick of dynamite with a fuse on each end and both of them are lit and you’re the one standing there holding it.”
The team will rely on Elliott, a two-time Daytona 500 winner, to get it into the race.
“There’s none better than Bill Elliott, so, hopefully, we can race our way in,” Wood said. “If we don’t, we’ll see what happens after that. This is really a hard thing being where we are and we’re not alone. There are eight or 10 more of us in the same position. It’s not a good position to be in, but here we are.”
