Some of NASCAR’s most legendary drivers have raced for Wood Brothers since the team began in the 1950s.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Wood Brothers Racing, NASCAR’s oldest active team, hit a major milestone on Saturday with Harrison Burton’s upset win at Daytona.
Burton’s win was the first of his career and the 100th Cup Series trophy for Wood Brothers. The win makes Wood Brothers just the eighth team to reach a triple-digit win total.
“When I got hired to drive for the Wood Brothers that was my main goal — to get them number 100,” Burton said. “We’ve been beaten down, told we’re not good enough, doubting ourselves… we don’t give up on each other. [The Wood] family has led by example.”Â
Burton’s win adds another chapter in the tumultuous history of the Wood Brothers team. While the team once fielded some of NASCAR’s greatest drivers from the 1960s to the early 1990s, funding issues have relegated the team to backmarker status for most of the last 25 years. The team won 96 races from 1960 to 1993 but has just four wins in the last 30 years.
“No one can ever take that from us, we’re the group that got number 100,” Burton said. “To have accomplished that goal is amazing.”
Making history
Wood Brothers’ journey to reach 100 wins has been a long drawn-out process that stretches to NASCAR’s earliest days. The team was formed in 1950 and made its first NASCAR Cup Series starts in 1953.Â
NASCAR legends Curtis Turner, Joe Weatherly, and Junior Johnson made starts for the team before it got its first win. Glen Wood, one of the team’s founders, coincidentally won the team’s race in a race at Bowman Gray in 1960.
Wood Brothers became one of NASCAR’s top teams in the 1960s with Marvin Panch, Dan Gurney, and Cale Yarborough. Tiny Lund’s triumph in the 1963 Daytona 500 gave Wood Brothers its first of six wins in the prestigious event.
David Pearson won 43 races for the team from 1972 to 1978, becoming the winningest Wood Brothers driver.Â
Neil Bonnet followed Pearson by winning nine races from 1979 to 1982. From there, Wood Brothers wins became few and far between. Buddy Baker won once in 1983, Kyle Petty and Dale Jarrett earned their first wins with the team in 1986 and 1991, and Morgan Shepherd won in 1993 but Wood Brothers struggled as NASCAR evolved.
Elliott Sadler returned the team to victory lane at Bristol in 2001 but it would be 10 years before Wood Brothers would win another race. Trevor Bayne scored his only career win in the 2011 Daytona 500 for Wood Brothers. Ryan Blaney started his Cup Series career with the team and won at Pocono in 2017 holding off Kyle Busch. Burton’s win ended a seven-year wait for win No. 100 for Wood Brothers.
Wood Brothers is the winningest team to never win a Cup Series title. Despite fielding NASCAR champions like Pearson, Yarborough, and Bill Elliott, the team has never completed a championship season. The team ran part-time schedules until the 1980s, hurting its chances to win a title in its prime years. David Pearson’s third-place finish in the 1974 season after running 19 of 30 races is the best finish for a Wood Brothers driver.Â
While Wood Brothers is not racking up wins like it did in the 1970s or attracting big-name sponsors like in the 1990s, the famed No. 21 Ford remains a constant on the NASCAR circuit as a connection to the sport’s past. At 89 years old, Leonard Wood, a co-founder of the team, remains involved with the product and was exuberant about Burton’s win.
“Leonard is super hip for being almost 90 — he sends emojis,” Burton laughingly said. “He’s 89 but he moves around like a 50-year-old. He works his tail off… every time you go to the Wood Brothers shop you hear loud clanking noises because he’s throwing stuff everywhere and working. For him to still be around in the good shape he’s in and properly enjoy it is really special.”
The NASCAR playoffs will begin on Sept. 8 at Atlanta with Burton on the postseason grid. There is one more race in the NASCAR Cup Series regular season at Darlington on Sunday, Sept. 1.
