Daytona Beach, Fla. — Jon Wood, third-generation driver for one of NASCAR’s most respected teams, will make his Nextel Cup debut for Team Ford Racing in March. He’ll get 10 starts in the famous No. 21 Ford Fusion of Wood Brothers Racing and drive the team’s No. 47 Ford in another. He’ll drive for team veteran Ken Schrader in 10 races and be Schrader’s teammate in the other, at Las Vegas.
Wood is the 25-year-old grandson of Glen Wood, the team’s founder and a member of every meaningful motorsports hall of fame. He’s the son of Eddie Wood, who co-owns the team with his brother, Len, and their sister, Kim. They relocated to Charlotte, N.C., two years ago after five decades in the small Virginia town of Stuart.
Jon will be the first Wood in a family-owned Cup car since his grandfather retired in 1964.
“Everybody in the family is pretty excited about this,” his father said during Wednesday testing at Daytona International Speedway. “It’s been—what? —40-some years since a Wood raced one of our cars. I hope our long-time fans are as excited about this as we are.
“It’s a big deal, especially when you consider the history of our team and the history of Ford Motor Company, plus the history of our race team with Ford Motor Company. We have 56 or 57 years in racing and Ford has more than 100 years, so that makes it pretty special. I think his grandfather—heck, probably all of us—will be a little more proud that Sunday than we usually are. And I’ll be more nervous than usual, you know, in the time right before he gets in and they start the engines. Once the race starts, it’ll probably seem just like any other race because we have so much to do.”
Glen Wood and his brothers, Leonard, Clay and Delano, founded their stock team in the late 1940s. After several seasons in the rough-and-tumble Modified division, Glen and the brothers advanced to Grand National, which evolved into Winston Cup and is now Nextel Cup. Entering this season, the organization has 119 poles and 96 victories in 1,271 starts. It won the 1963 NASCAR championship with Joe Weatherly and has fielded Ford cars for many of stock racing’s greatest stars.
Wood will debut at Las Vegas Motor Speedway the second Sunday in March, then race at Texas Motor Speedway a month later. He’ll run the Coca-Cola 600 near Charlotte in May, the Pepsi 400 at Daytona Beach in July, the second race (in July) at Pocono International Raceway and the Saturday night race at Bristol Motor Speedway in August. The fall portion of his schedule includes dates at Richmond and Dover in September, back to Charlotte in October, then to Texas and Phoenix in November. Except for the spring race in Texas, (where he’ll carry No. 47), he’ll be in the team’s familiar No. 21.
He didn’t come to Daytona Beach for Cup testing, choosing, instead, to fly in Thursday for the three-day Busch Series test in his No. 47 Ford Fusion. (He’ll continue to run the full Busch schedule in cars fielded by JTG/Wood Brothers Racing). In interviews last fall, Wood said he was looking forward to making Wood Brothers Racing a truly family effort.
“You grow up around racing and you’re right there when so much history is made, so you learn very early how important it is,” he said. “I grew up hoping that I’d someday get to drive for my father’s team, but you never know how things are gonna work out. Yeah, I’m pretty excited about doing it next year. I think I’m ready. I know the team will give me good cars, safe cars and fast cars. It’s too early to get nervous or excited, but I’m sure I’ll be pretty pumped up whenever it happens next year.”
Wood began his racing career in a go-kart given to him by former Wood Brothers driver Dale Jarrett. After state and national success in the cart, he raced Allison Legacy Series cars, Late Models and Hooters ProCup cars. He went Craftsman Truck Series racing in 2001 and Busch Series racing in 2002. All told, he has 72 Busch starts and 91 Craftsman starts spread over six seasons. Ironically, he didn’t automatically pick No. 21 early in his career. He carried No. 16 on his go-karts and throughout his early stock car career. He drove the No. 50 Ford F-150 truck for Roush and the No. 47 Fusion for JTG/Wood Brothers in the Busch Series.
Eddie Wood never gave much thought to the possibility that his son would someday get to Cup.
“You start go-kart racing when you’re 10 or 12, and it’s a slow process moving ahead,” Eddie Wood said. “You never look too far ahead. A lot of people talked about it, saying it would happen. But I sort of let it play itself out. If it worked out, fine; it not, fine, too. Nobody pushed him to race. It wasn’t like, Hey, you’re gonna be a race car driver.’ If anything, I discouraged him and put it off as long as I could.”
Then Wood gave sort of a half-smile and added: “Then Dale Jarrett came along and unloaded one at our house, and we went from there.”
