'We're going to be competitive': Wood Brothers Racing embraces future as NASCAR hits Martinsville

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Wood Brothers Racing returns this weekend to Martinsville, where its storied past and promising future will be on display.

NASCAR’s oldest team, established in 1950, is opening a Hall of Fame at its Stuart, Va., museum on May 22. The exhibit will feature five significant race cars in its history, along with trophies and even T-shirts that its drivers have won over the past eight decades.

Glen Wood, the legendary team’s patriarch who died six years ago, made his first NASCAR Cup Series start at Martinsville. The track less than 30 miles from their headquarters in southwest Virginia holds importance to the team, and perhaps none more than this year, as the team celebrates its 75th anniversary.

“Ninety percent of of the NASCAR industry considers the (Coca-Cola) 600 their first home weekend, and it will be our second,” team president and former driver Jon Wood said. “The way all this has come together is, I mean, you couldn’t have planned it any better, and you certainly wouldn’t have predicted it. Everything that’s happened, not just Josh (Berry), but the way that the sport has embraced our history, and they want to support that and highlight that. It’s been a really, really neat thing to have happen, and we want to give back as best we can.”

The Charlotte Observer caught up with Jon Wood and chief operation officer and fellow co-owner Len Wood ahead of Sunday’s Cup race at Martinsville. This interview has been edited lightly for brevity and clarity.

‘It’s very important to always be the Wood Brothers’

— Shane Connuck: As certain teams expand to three-car teams, how do you see this unique single-car team with its Team Penske alliance fitting into the future of NASCAR?

— Jon Wood: We catch a lot of flack from the anonymous race fans, particularly on social media, who just like to complain. And the first thing they’ll say is, well, that’s a Penske car or, well, you guys are most like whatever — they’ll say something, and it’s in reference to our Penske alliance. The landscape in NASCAR has changed so much, especially with the Next Gen car that if you’re not aligned with one of the big three — Hendrick, Gibbs or Penske — you’re gonna run bad every week. You can make it, with the implementation of the charter system that gives us financial stability, but you’re not going to be competitive. And so for us to be competitive, and to make it make sense with our Ford alliance, because we would be considered the Ford factory team if you asked Edsel Ford. To make it make sense for them, we have to be competitive. We have to give every last dollar that we can spend to be fast. To do that, it required this Penske alliance. Some of that means leaning on them more than others. But we still have our own people. We still have our independence in some areas, and then in other areas, we heavily rely on them. It’s no secret. It’s not like we’re not trying to hide that. It’s a feature, it’s not a symptom, and we’re proud of that. We’re proud to have that level of trust with them that they know we’re not going to be giving away the trade secrets and whatever the case may be that another team would have concerns with giving full access to a partner. It’s more of a partnership than a than a customer relationship.

— Len Wood: And we’ve had deals. Like with Roush, on and off, we’d use Roush engines as early as Dale Jarrett days, which was ‘91. Jack (Roush) would help us get our stuff better, but you’d use engines on different occasions. And then we moved to Charlotte in 2003, kind of an alliance with Roush. ... We switched off to trying to do it on our own, with a guy named Michael “Fatback” McSwain crew chief. And we did well for a while. Then you find yourself kind of back struggling a bit, called Jack up. And here we go again. That carried us until we did the Penske deal. If you go back to the ‘60s, it was Holman-Moody, which was the Ford factory. They built all the cars and all the engines and stuff like that. So we had help all along the way.

— JW: It’s not an insult when somebody says — I saw one (Monday) morning where some guy was saying that, well, ‘where would you be without Penske?’ And you’re exactly right. If we could put it on the side of the transporter we would, it’s something that we’re proud of that we have that ability. That at the end of the day, it still says Motorcraft on the side of the car. It’s a No. 21, it’s our driver, our employees. What difference does it make? We own the team. We bought our charter. We did that the hard way.

— SC: So how important is it for the Wood Brothers, specifically, to keep their history in the future of our sport?

— JW: That’s another good example to give of the differences between ourselves and Team Penske. They’re a little bit more buttoned up, a little bit more white pressed collared shirts. We’re a little bit more on the redneck side, but that’s what we’ve always been. We’ve been these honest. ‘Here’s what you get’ people, those boundaries are set, and they’ll never, ever bleed over into one another. That’s that’s kind of how we keep our unique brand and they keep their unique brand, but we still have a really good working relationship and partnership. It’s very important to always be the Wood Brothers — and not be the Wood Brothers presented by ... Team Penske.

The Wood Brothers keep their home in Virginia

— SC: How unique is it to be regularly up in Stuart, Virginia, especially as you’ve had the shop in Mooresville for more than 20 years?

— LW: (Mooresville) is like a satellite office. Our headquarters is still in Virginia, and I think people sometimes forget that, or they get the two mixed up. But if I’m having a package sent to Wood Brothers Racing, it’s going to go to Stuart. If you go there and visit the museum, you’re very likely to see Leonard (Wood) running around super dirty, building something, working on something. And that is a feature that we’re very proud of. That’s something he gets to give back to race fans who have followed us for all these years.

— JW: Another example that I would give, from my perspective: Whenever you’re far away from the hub of motorsports, if you have an advantage, it’s easier to keep that advantage because you’re able to keep those trade secrets in house. Look at Furniture Row. They were in Colorado. It took them a long time to get there, and they had to spend a lot of money to gain that advantage. But once they had it, they kept it because they were so far away, a guy couldn’t roll his tool box across the street to another. I use that metaphorically, like a crew chief who knows everything can’t quit there, go a mile away to another shop and take all that knowledge and suddenly make that team competitive. Roush Fenway, they had all their Craftsman trucks. The Truck Series program was in Livonia, Michigan. It was banging for a long time, and they were able to keep it that way because they were so far away from everybody else. And they had an advantage, suddenly then they didn’t. They had to move to Charlotte.

Team has mixed results at Martinsville, but ‘Daddy loved it’

— SC: Being in southwest Virginia, how exciting are Martinsville races — especially this weekend as we head there in the team’s 75th anniversary?

— JW: We used to dread it. (laughs)

— LW: Except for our dad — my dad, his grandfather — Daddy loved it. That’s where Daddy had his first Grand National, which is what we now know as the Cup. That was where his first start was, in 1953, in a ‘53 Lincoln. It was a dirt track at that point. But Daddy had a quite a bit of success in modifieds and actually convertibles there. He liked the flat tracks and slower tracks. He didn’t like the speed like Daytona. But we have struggled there.

— JW: And that’s the frustrating part. You can look up if you’re sitting on the frontstretch in any one of the pit boxes, you can look up and you can find somebody — they look like they’re just across the street from here. That’s frustrating, when you’re there and you’re running last, first car to get lapped or among them, that’s not fun. And so now it’s a different story. We go there and we know that we’re going to be competitive. I remember sitting with Frank Beamer. His sister was my second grade teacher, and he came and watched. We had a Virginia Tech scheme, Virginia Tech livery, for one race there with (Ryan) Blaney, and he was on pit box with us. And it was nice knowing before the green flag, we weren’t gonna run bad. It was a neat feeling to say, ‘come on up here, Frank and watch this,’ and know we’ve got nothing to worry about. We might wreck, but we’re not going to look silly. And that’s a change.

— LW: We’re looking forward to Martinsville. We’re looking forward to all of them right now, to be honest.

— JW: Josh (Berry) has a good history and good following at Martinsville with his late model success there. He’ll be among the favorites — crowd favorite, fan favorites — but also he should perform well, too. So, you look forward to it.