When Harrison Burton initially signed up with the Wood Brothers ahead of the 2022 season, one word was on his mind: tradition. “It’s absolutely a cool chance and a huge duty to continue that tradition, and do it properly. That’s not lost on me,” he stated before the season started.”I’ve constantly put that very same pressure on myself to carry out and succeed.”
If you’re not soaked in NASCAR history, Burton’s speak about sensation pressure to carry out while driving the No. 21 automobile would have sounded a bit odd. Wood Brothers Racing seems simply another single-car group that in some way captures an uncommon win every years or two. Like Williams in Formula 1, it’s a group that’s left tire marks all over the sport’s history books.
Wood Brothers Racing is the earliest existing group in NASCAR– they ran their very first Cup race in 1953, with Glen Wood driving a Lincoln that had a No. 21 painted throughout the door. He established the group along with siblings Leonard, Delano, and Ray Lee, and together they constructed among the sport’s most long-lasting existences.
Wood Brothers
While renowned companies such as Petty Enterprises, Yates Racing, and Junior Johnson & & Associates have actually fallen by the wayside, Wood Brothers stays. Even as fellow Ford group Stewart-Haas Racing — when a powerhouse in NASCAR– prepares to close up store at completion of the 2024 Cup season, the Wood Brothers reveal so indications of decreasing.
The very first of numerous
In 1960, Glen himself provided the group its very first Cup win, leading every lap from lead at Bowman Gray Stadium. With time, the wins began flooding in, and the red-and-white No. 21 ended up being almost as widely known as the Petty blue No. 43 on the track. NASCAR Hall of Famer David Pearson acquired 43 of the group’s 100 race wins, consisting of 11 in a single season in 1973. Wood Brothers Racing took its very first Daytona 500 checkered flag in 1968, with Tiny Lund behind the wheel; the group won its 5th (and latest) Daytona 500 in 2011 with then-rookie Trevor Bayne.
Life in NASCAR’s Cup series is tough for a one-car group. It took Harrison Burton’s disorderly last-lap mad dash for Woods Brothers to reach 100, with Ryan Blaney having actually notched the group’s 99th success back in 2017, at Pocono. Wood Brothers Racing hasn’t taken pleasure in a multi-win season considering that 1981, and has actually just made 3 Cup triumphes in the 21st century.
Trevor Bayne of Wood Brothers Racing commemorating his 2011 Daytona 500 win
Picture by: Motorsport.com/ ASP Inc.
The Great Recession almost spelled completion of the historical race group. Wood Brothers was required to run a part-time schedule from 2007 through 2015 simply to keep the doors open. Because those unpredictable days, the group’s lined up with Team Penske, providing adequate assistance to assist WBR make the playoffs 3 times– consisting of,