MARCOS AMBROSE – No. 9 Stanley Ford Fusion (Finished 37th) – WHAT DID YOU SEE FROM YOUR SEAT? “Not a lot. I saw the 00 spun out and I just checked out. I was going pretty straight and they all started running over the top of me. I thought I had it saved and then I got spun down on the bottom, and then Jeff Gordon finished me off. We’re gonna get back out with the Stanley Ford Fusion. We’re excited to be at Daytona, it’s just a shame it ended this way.”
IS THIS AN ISSUE NASCAR WILL HAVE TO ADDRESS BEFORE TALLADEGA? “I don’t know. I’m just driving the race car. Whatever the rules are and whatever we’re doing I’m gonna be part of it, but it’s ruined our day. It’s been unfortunate for Stanley. It’s my first race for this team and it’s just a terrible way to do it.”
HOW WAS THE RACING OUT THERE? “It’s really close. Everybody is trying to find partners to work with and pull away. I think everyone is just trying to work out how to do it. Today, I was just trying to make sure I didn’t drop off the back without finding a good partner and got caught up in a mess, too. I was trying to play it safe and it didn’t work out too well for me.”
ROBERT RICHARDSON, JR. – No. 37 Front Row Ford Fusion (Finished 38th) – WHAT HAPPENED OUT THERE? “You know, it is crazy. That is what is happening today with that two car draft. Everyone is still trying to figure it out. I was running with my teammate Travis Kvapil and I was getting pretty tight off the corners and he was locked onto my bumper. I was trying to keep it out of the wall and he was still attached to me. The rest is history. I hate it. I hate it for Front Row Motorsports and everyone else that gave me an opportunity to run this race. It is definitely not Daytona racing. This two car draft stuff is pretty tough to deal with and try to get a handle on and trust the guy behind you. I am okay though.”
IS THIS SOMETHING THAT NEEDS TO GET ADDRESSED BEFORE TALLADEGA? “If they were going to address something, you would have thought it would have happened before this race. There are definitely some things they need to change to get it back to pack racing like it used to be. It is our job as racers to try to get away and break the mold a little bit though too. Hopefully by Talladega they will have something figured out so that all the cars can get back to big pack racing again.”
MATT KENSETH – No. 17 Crown Royal Black Ford Fusion (Finished 34th) – “We were pretty beat up and it was pretty hard to control. I should have known better. I should have just stayed in the back and hoped for a lucky dog or a wavearound, but Mark did a wavearound that time so we were trying to race him for the lucky dog. I was driving up there in traffic where I knew I wasn’t capable of doing with a car pushing me. Greg was trying to help me out to get me back on the lead lap, so we were coming up through the middle and he was pushing me. Logano put on a big block, so I had to get on the brakes and slow up for him and Greg couldn’t quite slow up and just got me turned around.”
WHAT HAPPENED? “First of all, I shouldn’t have gone up there to start with. I asked him to try to help me get the lucky dog or get back on the lead lap and he was staying with me, but in all that dirty air my car was so beat up and the suspension was so bad that I could hardly make it through the corner. I had to let off the gas all the time. I couldn’t run up there in all that turbulent air, but we caught the 20 and a couple of other cars. The 20 was by himself, slow and saw us coming. I was gonna split the middle and he went up to block so I had to slow up and when I got slowed up, I just got turned around.”
HOW MENTALLY CHALLENGING IS IT OUT THERE? “It’s just aggravating because you’ve got to either be shoving somebody or get shoved and it’s just kind of an aggravating way to race. You’ve got to watch your mirror and keep riding the brakes and try to get to somebody, or you’ve got to be in front of somebody and hope they slam the brakes so you can just slam them. It’s just a difficult way to race.”
GREG BIFFLE – No. 16 3M Ford Fusion (Finished 35th) – “I don’t know what happened there. I got a little sideways off of four. I don’t know if the 42 wasn’t pushing quite straight or what. I went sideways for awhile and got it gathered back up. Right when I got it gathered back up he hit me again and sent me into the fence on the outside. I just have to watch the replay. There is only so much you can do trying to drive these cars. I hurt my teammate four laps earlier the same way. You don’t mean to do it but you have to push to stay up with all the cars. Unfortunately that is what happened.”
HOW IS THE RACING OUT THERE AND WHAT HAPPENED WITH YOU AND KENSETH? “Matt’s car was moving around, the air was moving it around. He was kind of stuck behind the 20 and I was trying to be easy. It looked like I bumped him and he got going and got straightened out and I started to go against him and he wasn’t quite done moving around. It just takes a touch at the right time when a guy is moving and you will turn him. Just like what happened with Montoya and I. He probably thought I was gathered back up and tried to push and we weren’t quite straight yet.”
WHEN YOU COME BACK IN JULY DO YOU THINK WE WILL SEE MORE OF THE SAME OF THIS, OR WILL YOU GUYS FIGURE OUT HOW TO DO THIS OUT HERE? “I think we know what we are doing. We were tore up and it is unfortunate. It is luck of the draw. You have to have a good guy pushing you and your car can’t be tore up. The 99 and I worked great together; the 6 and I worked great. Matt’s car is torn to pieces and I don’t have an excuse for Montoya at this point.”
DRIVE FOR 600 COMPLETE TREVOR BAYNE PUTS FORD RACING IN VICTORY LANE WITH MANUFACTURER’S 12TH DAYTONA 500 TRIUMPH
. Today’s win in the Daytona 500 was the 600th NASCAR Sprint Cup Series win for Ford Racing and its 12th overall in “The Great American Race.” . Trevor Bayne became the 10th different Ford driver to win the Daytona 500. . Trevor Bayne registered the first win of his NASCAR Sprint Cup Series career with today’s win in only his second series start. . He becomes the seventh driver in NASCAR history to make the Daytona 500 his first NSCS victory. . Bayne is the 75th different driver to win a Cup race with Ford Racing, and the first since Jamie McMurray won for the first time with the manufacturer in 2007. . The win by Wood Brothers Racing is the first by a Ford team other than Roush Fenway Racing since Dale Jarrett won for Robert Yates Racing at Talladega in October 2005. . It also marks the first win for a non-RFR team in the Ford Fusion since it became the manufacturer’s flagship model in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series in 2006. . The last NSCS win for the Wood Brothers was with Elliott Sadler at Bristol on March 25, 2001 – which happened to be all-time win No. 512 for Ford Racing.
Ford Daytona 500 Race Winners (Owner): 1963 – Tiny Lund (Wood Brothers) 1965 – Fred Lorenzen (Holman-Moody) 1967 – Mario Andretti (Holman-Moody) 1969 – LeeRoy Yarbrough (Junior Johnson) 1978 – Bobby Allison (Bud Moore) 1985 – Bill Elliott (Harry Melling) 1987 – Bill Elliott (Harry Melling) 1992 – Davey Allison (Robert Yates) 1996 – Dale Jarrett (Robert Yates) 2000 – Dale Jarrett (Robert Yates) 2009 – Matt Kenseth (Jack Roush) 2011 – Trevor Bayne (Wood Brothers)
DAVID RAGAN – No. 6 UPS Ford Fusion (Finished 14th) – “I know what the rules are. I felt like the leader had the start of the race. I felt like we fired and I started to move down right before the start-finish line, but I don’t think I crossed that invisible line that separates the top and the bottom. I also haven’t seen the replay, but to win these Cup races you can’t make any mistakes and the mistake I made hurt us, but our UPS team did a great job. I’m proud of all our UPS guys. A lot of UPS fans should be proud. It’ll take us a long time to forget this one, but we’ll move on to Phoenix and the sooner we can win one, the sooner we can forget it.”
YOU HAD A PLAN TO WORK TOGETHER. “I was just a little bit too greedy. If I would have waited an extra split-second to start moving down, but I felt like when we crossed the plain of the start-finish line that I wasn’t totally on the bottom. I felt like you could start moving over before, but you live and learn. That’s a tough one to get away, but congrats to Trevor. He did an awesome job. If it wasn’t for the 21, we wouldn’t have been up there, so Trevor did a great job.”
WHAT WAS THE PLAN ON THAT LAST RESTART? WHY DID YOU DO WHAT YOU DID AND NOT HAVE TREVOR LEAD AND YOU PUSH? “I wanted to get to the bottom as soon as possible. I think Trevor was the best pusher on the race track all day long and I just got to the bottom a little too early. You’re going through your mind and thinking about not missing a gear. We were close on fuel and I was trying not to miss a beat on fuel. You don’t really start thinking about winning, what you’re gonna do, you just try to make sure you go through all the steps and I was just a little off on one of them.”
TERRY LABONTE – No. 32 U.S. Chrome Ford Fusion (Finished 15th) – “I’ve never run one quite like that. We laid back and just tried to make sure we stayed out of trouble because the car was definitely fast enough. We had a couple different guys we could hook up with and had good speed, and then there at the end of the race for the last 20 laps we got a hole knocked in the radiator and we had to put water in it a couple times. It’s a good thing the race wasn’t much longer because we wer e about done, but it was a good run. These guys did a good job. It was fun.”
WHAT ABOUT THE WOOD BROTHERS WINNING? “That’s awesome. It is so cool, especially with the paint job they had on the car. It looked like the old David Pearson car. I’m so happy for those guys. That’s just a great family and they’ve done so much for the sport, I sure am glad to see them in Victory Lane.”
AJ ALLMENDINGER – No. 43 Best Buy Ford Fusion (Finished 11th) – “That’s way better than last year. I said if we had a top 15, I’d be happy to leave here, especially with that race because I should have been in that first wreck. Honestly, I don’t know how I wasn’t in it. The seas kind of parted and we came out of it with just minor damage, so what I should have been in compared to where we finished was not too bad. It’s cool for Ford to get their 600th win at the Daytona 500. I wish I could have done it. You see somebody celebrate their first victory and it makes you kind of sad because you know what you want to do, but I have no complaints. We have a good car for Phoenix and we’ll be ready.”
TRAVIS KVAPIL – No. 38 Long John Silver’s Ford Fusion (Finished 32nd) – “We just got caught up in an early wreck and hurt the right-front wheel settings and fought it all day long. We had a couple of flat tires because of that and handling problems because of that. There was nothing we could really do. We tried fighting through it, but we just kept hurting the right-front tire – all because of that one big wreck down in three and four. That hurt the car enough to where we just couldn’t quite get it fixed right.”
HOW WAS THIS STYLE OF RACING WITH 43 CARS OUT THERE? “It’s fine when your car is OK. It’s tough, but everything was fine until we got tangled up a little bit. It’s just hard to race when your bumpers are all beat up and you’re broke and you’re damaged. It’s hard to do what you need to do to go fast.”
CARL EDWARDS – No. 99 Aflac Ford Fusion (Finished 2nd) – “I was doing the best I could to not wreck. Congratulations to Trevor. I can’t thank Ford and Aflac and everybody enough. I did the very best I could there at the end. Man, Trevor’s car is really fast. That is a fast Ford Fusion. I got under Bobby and I got to Trevor’s bumper and he did such a good job of blocking down low. I started to go low and then I didn’t know if I should go high or not. He won that race. He did an amazing job.”
DAVID GILLILAND – No. 34 Taco Bell Ford Fusion (Finished 3rd) – “I am really proud of Ford and what they have been able to accomplish. To finish 1-2-3 in the Daytona 500 is amazing. Congratulations to Trevor Bayne and everything he just accomplished. I have to thank Bob Jenkins. He does this out of his pocket. He owns these Taco Bell’s and it is a great day for Front Row Motorsports. This tops up as one of my best days ever for sure.
WHAT WAS IT LIKE THAT LAST LAP? “Oh man. Our Taco Bell Ford Fusion with the FR9 power was really good and it showed at the end. Three Fords up there top three is incredible. That is awesome. I gotta thank Carl. We really hooked up and made some moves there at the end. He made some good moves and we were just going.”
CAN YOU IMAGINE WHAT MUSH BE GOING THROUGH THAT ROOKIES HEAD RIGHT NOW? “Man, congratulations to Trevor. What an awesome day. They had a great car all weekend here and you really gotta give him a lot of credit. He drove an awesome race and has a very bright future.”
TREVOR BAYNE – No. 21 Motorcraft Ford Fusion – Victory Lane Quote – “I keep thinking I am dreaming, I really do. We said a prayer before the race and we prayed a lot and this shows you how powerful God is. I am so thankful for the job that these guys did on this car. It is unbelievable. Our first 500, are you kidding me? To win our first one? Our second ever Cup race? I can’t think the guys that worked with me enough. There were 10-15 different drivers that helped ups get across that line. Wow. This is unbelievable. Ford, Motorcraft, the Wood Brothers. It is just amazing. How cool is it to see the Wood Brothers back in victory lane. We have Leonard here and he is the man. Thanks to the fans. I have never been to a race track with so many people. To win on this platform is incredible.
YOU DIDN’T EVEN KNOW HOW TO GET TO VICTORY LANE DID YOU? “It is crazy to get my first Cup win before a Nationwide win. I didn’t know how to get to victory lane, but we will find our way back hopefully. This is unbelievable.”
FORD RACING NOTES AND QUOTES Daytona 500, Page 7 February 20, 2011 Daytona International Speedway
LEONARD WOOD – No. 21 Motorcraft Ford Fusion – VICTORY LANE QUOTE – “You know, sometimes you wonder if rookies are capable of winning you know? Today I told him that he had already proved to me that he could win and then he goes out and does it. Awesome job. This is one of the greatest wins we have ever had. I have no doubts about this kid now. What an unbelievable day for him and for us.”
NOTING THE WOOD BROTHERS
. This was the fifth Daytona 500 win for the Wood Brothers.
1963 – Tiny Lund (This was the first Daytona 500 win for Ford Racing) 1968 – Cale Yarborough 1972 – A.J. Foyt 1976 – David Pearson 2011 – Trevor Bayne
. Founder Glen Wood competed in the Inaugural Daytona 500 on Feb. 22, 1959 and finished 34th in a field of 59 competitors.
. The Wood Brothers have 98 all-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series wins with 16 different drivers. David Pearson ranks first on the team list with 43 wins followed by Cale Yarborough, 13; Neil Bonnett, 9; Marvin Panch, 8; A.J. Foyt, 5; Glen Wood and Dan Gurney, 4; Speedy Thompson and Kyle Petty, 2; Donnie Allison, Curtis Turner, Tiny Lund, Buddy Baker, Dale Jarrett, Morgan Shepherd, Elliott Sadler and Trevor Bayne, 1.
. The last NSCS win for the Wood Brothers was with Elliott Sadler at Bristol on March 25, 2001 – which happened to be all-time win No. 512 for Ford Racing.
DAVID GILLILAND-CARL EDWARDS PRESS CONFERENCE
CARL EDWARDS – No. 99 Aflac Ford Fusion – “David pushed me and that’s what I needed. That’s what our Aflac Ford needed all day. We waited and waited and tried not to tear up the race car and there at the end it all worked out almost perfectly. Trevor did a good job of blocking the bottom and then that car was a rocket and took off to the finish line and we didn’t have a chance to be able to mount up a real charge on him. I’d love to see a replay of the last lap just to watch it from the outside. I learned a lot today. I think I can tell you guys that second-place in the Daytona 500 feels way worse than any other position I’ve ever finished in the Daytona 500, but that is made better by listening to Trevor and how excited he is. He is a really nice young man and a great guy to represent this sport with this win.”
DAVID GILLILAND – No. 34 Taco Bell Ford Fusion – “We had a great day. Our Taco Bell Ford was really good, the same as Carl, it’s a 500-mile race. I don’t think I’ve finished the last three or four restrictor plate races we’ve run, but I knew we needed to be there at the end and everybody at Front Row Motorsports did a great job on giving us a good race car and we knew that. We just had to preserve it until the end. We talked to Carl a little bit, Jason his spotter, on that last restart and we were gonna try and get hooked up if we could and we were able to and the two Fords together, man, they were going to the front. We needed that start-finish line up a little bit further, but congratulations to Trevor Bayne. He’s been great down here all week and, obviously, like Carl said, it’s great for the Wood Brothers and good to see him win.”
DAVID GILLILAND – CAN YOU COMPARE THIS TO YOUR WIN AT KENTUCKY IN THE NATIONWIDE SERIES? “It’s right up there. Without the first one, I wouldn’t be here to finish third today, but, definitely, really exciting. I finished second at Infineon and that was good, but I think this one tops that. It’s Daytona and I’m just really proud of our team. At media day last week I told a bunch of people that you can look for Front Row Motorsports, I think, for sure, to be the most improved team from last year. We’ve stepped up our motor program to run the FR9 motors and Bob Jenkins bought a bunch of cars from RPM and it really has taken us 10 steps ahead on the competition side, so I’m really proud of that. I’m proud of weathering the storm last year and now have a top-three finish at Daytona for not only myself, but Bob Jenkins. He’s put a lot. He does this deal out of his pocket and to come and do that and be here with this success is something to be proud of.”
CARL EDWARDS – HOW CLOSE TO THE LINE WERE YOU BEFORE YOU KNEW YOU WEREN’T GOING TO MAKE IT? “I realized that once I lost my momentum behind Trevor that I wasn’t gonna win. I was telling David, if we’d have gone to the high side, I think we would have gone around them if we didn’t get broken up, but then I think David probably would have won because he would have been able to go by me. I think I was pretty much in trouble no matter what, but I’m not sure. I need to see the replay again, but it was like I was telling him out there and like I said earlier, I think the experience of running with a chance to win these races, that’s what I need to go and break through the next level and win some of these restrictor plate races and I think I got some of that today.”
CARL EDWARDS CONTINUED CAN YOU TALK ABOUT YOUR STRATEGY IN THE LAST FEW LAPS? “I don’t know if you guys noticed but that was pretty wild out there. So I did my best to be there at the end. We were there at the end and I did what I felt I had to do.”
WHAT WAS YOUR CLOSEST CALL OUT THERE? – “Mine was going to the tri-oval. I got sideways and was sliding and I thought we were done. That was a close call.”
ALL LAST SEASON WHEN THE RATINGS WERE DOWN, THE DRIVERS KEPT SAYING THE RACING WAS BETTER THAN IT HAS BEEN. DO YOU THINK WE NEED TO START PAYING MORE ATTENTION TO WHAT YOU GUYS ARE SAYING? “Ya think? Man, that is the smartest guy in the room right there. I think that the ratings and the stuff we can look up, all of that stuff doesn’t tell the story of what is going on out there on the race track. We really do hwave the most competitive racing that I have been a part of. Races like today with a new winner, an up and coming guy in a sport who is tied to so much history, this is as good as it gets guys. If people aren’t watching, that is their problem cause we have great stuff going on here.”
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT WHAT IT MEANS TO HAVE AN UNDERDOG TYPE DAY LIKE TREVOR BAYNE HAD OUT THERE? “As a person, a friend of Trevor’s, to watch him have that success is amazing. He is a truly nice guy. That is good for the sport. I still would have like to beat him though, that is for sure.”
WHAT CAN YOU TELL PEOPLE ABOUT TREVOR, WHAT YOU HAVE LEARNED THAT PEOPLE WILL LIKE ABOUT HIM? “I think the world is going to like him a lot. I think he will have a lot of fun this week and do a good job representing the sport, whatever he does this week. He is a guy that has a ton of enthusiasm and he will walk right up to you and stick his hand out and shake your hand. He seems like a really good guy. When you are competing against people, you don’t always have that kind of feeling about him that you really like being around him, but hey, maybe now if he keeps winning races we won’t get along as well, but he seems like a really great guy.”
YOU DIDN’T SEEM TO BE UPSET THAT HE DENIED YOUR REQUEST ON THE BACK STRETCH THERE. WHAT WERE YOU LOOKING FOR AND WHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED HAD YOU BEEN ABLE TO CONNECT WITH HIM WHEN YOU RADIOED TO HIM THAT YOU WERE LOOKING FOR HELP? “I think he was working with someone else at the time. That is fine. You have to go with who is working with you the best. I wouldn’t change one thing about the race, other than the finish position. I wouldn’t change anything about that race. It was chaotic enough that if any single event was different I might have had a wrecked race car. Whatever worked out between us worked out well.”
WHAT WAS THE DYNAMIC LIKE OF TRYING TO FIND A PARTNER IN THE MIDDLE OF A RACE LIKE THAT? “It was hard. It is mentally taxing. It is very tough mentally. My head hurts right now from the stress. It was a very stressful race and that was part of it, having to communicate with people through spotters or switching over their radio or hand signals or whatever you could do. There was a lot of communication going on.”
CARL EDWARDS CONTINUED THE FR9 ENGINE ENGINES TODAY PROVED TO BE DURABLE AND THE ECR ENGINES DIDN’T. THE POWER OF THAT NEW FORD ENGINE HAS BEEN TOUTED A LOT, BUT NOBODY HAS TAKEN IT SERIOUSLY. ONCE AGAIN, SHOULD WE BE LISTENING TO YOU? “Doug Yates and those guys build great engines. I think that they had been doing a great job with the old engine, but now we have this new engine and we may have a lot to look forward to. That was a really good day for the engine. I don’t want to jinx it or anything. I am really excited to use it the whole year.”
I KNOW YOU SAID IT STINKS TO FINISH SECOND, BUT WITH THE NEW POINTS SYSTEM AND ALL THE CHAOS TODAY, CAN YOU COMMENT ON HOW GOOD IT IS JUST TO GET OUT OF HERE WITH THE POINTS TODAY? “Yeah, I didn’t say that. I do understand exactly what you are saying. This is going to be a long night for me. I will go back to the motor home and think of a hundred different things I could have done and what it would have been like to win the race, but when I roll into Phoenix next week I will look at those points and know that this is okay. There is a very bright side to our day today. We are going to have bad days. It is nice to get out of this one considering the chaos that was going on.”
THINKING BACK TO YOUR FIRST CUP WIN, CAN YOU TELL US WHAT TREVOR MIGHT BE GOING THROUGH RIGHT NOW? “He is about to have the greatest week of his life until he has children. I will never forget my first win. The next day I went up to New York and rang the bell at the stock exchange and I didn’t even have any stock. It was a whirlwind for me and I didn’t win the Daytona 500. I will hopefully get to talk to him a little bit this week. If any of you get a chance, go over there and hang out with him, go walk by him. It is amazing and he will be walking on air, that is for sure.”
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE MOMENTUM YOU BROUGHT TO THIS YEAR AND HOW MUCH OF IT IS FORD? “That is a good question. I think we have a lot of positive things going on. Our performances have been great. We have a win, a win and a second. That is a pretty good streak to be on and we are going to a couple tracks where, you never know what is going to happen, but historically they are really good of us. I feel like we are in a great spot. The way this race played out for Ford and Doug Yates and all of us is huge. Right now, so far, this season has picked up right where we left off.”
DAVID GILLILAND CONTINUED WHAT WAS YOUR CLOSEST CALL OUT THERE? “I had two of them. The 2 car spun and got into the wall and came down and I had to turn off the track and into the grass. I thought we were going to be wrecked and we survived that at the last minute.”
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT WHAT IT MEANS TO HAVE AN UNDERDOG TYPE DAY LIKE TREVOR BAYNE HAD OUT THERE? “I think it is a credit to NASCAR and the new rules and the new cars and trying to get the rules closer to get teams like us at Front Row Motorsports to have a chance to come out here and be competitive on a track like this. A lot of it is the rules and that is a credit to NASCAR for tightening up the rules and giving us a chance.”
DAVID GILLILAND – CAN YOU TALK ABOUT TREVOR’S SKILLS? “I think he’s done a great job. I watching him all weekend. He was in a different duel than me. He definitely has everybody’s respect out there and that’s what it takes. Obviously, on a day like today for him to stay out front all day, really, and people to work with him, I think he’s done a fantastic job. It’s neat that he won the Daytona 500 and, like Carl said, he’s such a great guy, such a nice guy, such an upbeat guy. I’m glad he won today. I wish we could have, obviously, but if we couldn’t, it’s good for him and the Wood Brothers. They’re great people and they deserve it.”
CARL EDWARDS – “It seems like he’s got it figured out. He does really well in the Nationwide Series. That’s where I’ve raced with him the most. It seems like he just has massive talent and he hasn’t done anything dumb. That’s hard for us sometimes as drivers. He’s done a really good job of keeping his composure and he just hasn’t made any mistakes. We all make mistakes, but he hasn’t made anymore than anyone else. He drives like a veteran.”
YOU CAN RELATE TO WHAT HE’S GONE THROUGH. “I hadn’t thought of it that way, but in 2005 we didn’t have a full sponsorship for the year. We won that race in Atlanta and that got my career rolling, so, hopefully, it works out the same way for Trevor. Hopefully, they can get a full-time sponsorship. Him and I talked a little bit this off season about what he was going to do. He was a little nervous about committing to a partial Cup schedule and we talked and we said, ‘Look, just go out and run great and you won’t be a partial Cup driver.’ Hopefully, corporate America or someone will take notice that this young man would be a great representative for them and he can run the full series. I believe he could be very, very tough, especially as he gets more experience.”
DID HE IMPRESS YOU YESTERDAY IN THE NATIONWIDE RACE AND HOW DID THE RACE PLAY OUT IN TERMS OF THE TWO-CAR DRAFT? “First of all, working with Trevor a little bit before and then watching him in the 150 and all that, I was very confident that he knew what he was doing. Second, that was like 520 miles of sheer terror out there. That was just wild. The only reason we didn’t wreck more often is because of how good the drivers are and how much I felt patience everyone used and discretion with their maneuvering and things like that. I felt like everyone did a really good job. If that were a lesser group of drivers out there on the race track, this would have been really, really bad. That was a circumstance we were all put in that made it very, very easy to wreck, which is OK by the way. It’s alright. That’s the way it was.”
WHAT HAPPENED WHEN YOU RAN OVER THE BRAKE ROTOR? “That was wild. All of you sitting here, just imagine you’re going 200 miles an hour and that gray little wall in front of you is all you can see. That’s like the back bumper of Kasey Kahne’s car on lap 182 for me. I’m just staring at the back bumper and all of a sudden it tipped this way. I thought, ‘My car tilted or his car tilted.’ I don’t know which one tilted but everything went like this and I thought, ‘Oh, I’ve blown a left-front tire.’ Then I backed off and saw that his right-front was down and my left-front was down, so he blew a rotor, shot debris back and blew my left-front. That was one of those bullets we dodged and one of those things just super-fortunate it happened where it did. I could pull right on to pit road, didn’t lose a lap. You can’t get any luckier than that.”
WOOD BROTHERS PRESS CONFERENCE
EDDIE WOOD, Co-Owner – No. 21 Motorcraft Ford Fusion – “It hasn’t really sunk in yet. We’ve struggled so much in the past couple years just to make the Daytona 500 much less win it. It’s just so special. There are so many people responsible for this that it’s just unbelievable we’re sitting here. Trevor Bayne did such a good job. To be 20 years old and go fender to fender with all these guys. He’s got the composure and the savvy of a veteran and now he’s a Daytona 500 winner. I’m just so happy for him. So much happened in the last 10 laps in my head. I walked in Victory Lane with Richard Petty and Edsel Ford and my dad. I don’t know how much better that can get.”
LEN WOOD, Co-Owner – No. 21 Motorcraft Ford Fusion – “We’re so tickled to be here. Ford Motor Company has stood behind us for 61 years now to be exact. It’s just unbelievable that we could keep the team, our dad and Leonard have won in seven decades now and I’m so proud of that. We’ve been Ford all of our entire racing and to be a part of NASCAR, like I say, this is the greatest feeling you can have. I was part of the ’76 win with Pearson. I think Eddie was here with Foyt in ’72 and Pearson in ’76, but Trevor did such a great job. You think, ‘Well, what’s your biggest win?’ Well, this is the top of the stack right now.”
DONNIE WINGO, Crew Chief – No. 21 Motorcraft Ford Fusion – “It feels really good. I’ve known these guys for probably about 30 years and with everything the way it worked out last year and the opportunity for me to come over and work with this great group of people, I couldn’t be prouder and couldn’t be happier. The job the kid did today, you couldn’t ask for anything else. There at the end, he hadn’t had the lead all day or get pushed and there at the end he did what he needed to do. I’m just proud of it. I’ve been doing this for like 30 years and just to be a part of this win with these guys, we had a lot of people that help us do this. We wrecked that car in the 150s and we basically had to put two sides on it and a lot of guys pitched in and helped to put it back together. If it wasn’t for that, we wouldn’t have been able to keep this car running this week.”
EDDIE WOOD – YOU SAID HE HAD A MATURITY ABOUT HIM. WHAT WAS HE LIKE ON THE RADIO TODAY? “Donnie is the gentleman that talked to him on the radio, but I was just a bystander listening, but he was very calm and whoever he was pushing, he was relaying back to our spotter to their spotter how he needed it to be done. When he plugged in if he needed to be the guy to drag the brake or come back a little more. He knew how to go fast and, like I told you a while back, that’s what I noticed in him right off the bat. He knows how to do this. I was talking to Richard Petty earlier in the week and we were talking about how well he did in the qualifiers and how do you do that your first time doing it. We decided that he didn’t know how to do it wrong. It’s new to him. It’s all brand new, so however he did it was correct. He caught on to the way that everyone else was doing it. We were on top of the hauler during the first qualifier and he watched Matt Kenseth pull out to the right and he said, ‘I think I’m gonna do that,’ and he went right out there and did it. He’s got a tremendous awareness in the car and the great ones are like that. I’ve listened to a lot of drivers on the radio and he reminds me of the great ones. He will be a great one. I told somebody the other day that I felt like he just might be the next big deal and I think he is.”
EDDIE WOOD – WHAT WAS THE TURNING POINT WITH THIS DEAL AND TREVOR? “The last couple of years we’ve been on our own. We’ve been doing our own engineering, along with Ford Motor Company, and we were small and it was just getting to the point that you couldn’t quite get where you needed to get. No matter how much money you spent, no matter how much work you did, you just couldn’t quite get over the hump to get to the point that you were competitive every week. So we talked to Jack and we worked out a plan for us to buy his race cars and line up with all of his engineering and it’s worked out perfectly. We ran the last three races last year like that and it’s just been flawless. The guys over at Roush Fenway have really treated us like family. Jack has treated Len and I just like two sons and I’m really proud of that. Donnie was already a part of their world and he came over to be a part of ours and it’s really, really, really One Ford – just like the slogan says. I think this is the happiest I’ve been. I think I told you that last week. This is probably the happiest, the calmest that I’ve been in about 10 years, so it’s all good.”
DONNIE WINGO – WHAT MADE YOU SO BULLISH ON TREVOR? “I think if you just watch the way he races, I think the biggest thing with these new guys coming in now is a lot of them can go fast, but they still struggle racing. I think that he doesn’t put himself in a bad position. It’s just like today and even all week, when we were down here testing he didn’t get to do any drafting because I wouldn’t let him. I didn’t want to tear the car up or anything like that. He kept wanting to draft, but I just think he adapts so well to certain situations and the racing part of it, he just catches on so well racing and doesn’t put himself in a bad position and I think that’s the sign of a good racer.”
EDDIE WOOD — WHAT HAVE BEEN THE CHALLENGES OR BURDEN OF MAINTAINING YOUR REPUTATION THE LAST 10 YEARS? “Len and I grew up in the Pearson era. I mean, we were part of that. We were Leonard’s little helpers. We didn’t do a lot, but we were there and when we kind of started downhill after all that you begin to think that you can never get back, but you keep trying. Just the fact that you want one more trophy, one more trophy. You just can’t quit and we never did quit. We just kept trying and, like I said, there are so many people responsible for us sitting here. We’re just a small part of it and it’s bringing back the red and white car with the gold number that Pearson drove, that just seemed like it put things back to normal. I told Richard Petty earlier in the week that he needed to paint his car back to blue with the orange stripes at the top and the world would be correct, and I believe that. I believe our car is supposed to be red and white with a gold number. His is supposed to be Petty blue with an orange stripe across the top of it with a big, white 43. Whenever that happens, I’ll be happy.”
TREVOR BAYNE – HOW DOES IT FEEL TO WIN THE DAYTONA 500? “If I tried to put it into words, I wouldn’t be doing it any justice that’s for sure. I tell you what, I couldn’t ask to be sitting up there with any better guys than three that are up here and then Glen and Leonard who laid the foundation for this whole thing. If it wasn’t for these guys, there is now way I’d be sitting up here. They gave me a rocket ship that definitely did me a lot of justice today. Anybody I hooked up with, it was headed to the front. To get this win, it’s my first win in NASCAR period in any of the top three series. My first Sprint Cup win in our second-ever race, that’s setting a standard, I’d say that for sure.”
TREVOR BAYNE CONTINUED – HOW DO YOU AND DONNIE RELATE? “You see us up here picking on each other. He still acts young. He can be a winner with anybody and I really believe that and these guys can be a winner with anybody any decade. They’ve been doing this for a long time. Donnie and I were just talking about how long he’s been trying to do this and I never would have thought I’d be the guy to give somebody their first Daytona 500 win, but I can’t thank these guys enough. It’s incredible. The whole crew, everybody that’s out there. They spend nights and days and rotisserie’s and all kinds of stuff getting that race car right and they put a lot of time into it and it paid off for them.”
TREVOR BAYNE – CAN YOU QUANTIFY HOW LOW IT GOT FOR YOU GUYS? THE LAST TIME YOU WON HE WAS 10 AND THE TIME BEFORE THAT HE WAS 3? THAT’S CRAZY. “I bet 1991 even makes you feel a little old, doesn’t it? (laughter)
EDDIE WOOD – “Probably the lowest point was missing this race in ’08. Our family had been coming down here since the fifties and had never missed one until we missed it. I think that’s probably the lowest point for me was that day, and we came back to the race track and hung out because we had a lot of guests coming and things like that. It’s almost like when you miss a race, especially the Daytona 500, it’s like somebody died. Until you go through it, you can’t put it into words, but when you walk through the garage and you see people you see every week, they’re afraid to look at you. It’s like they don’t know what to say. Like you walk up to them and say, ‘Hey, we missed the race, OK.’ But it’s tearing you apart inside. Len and I dug in and we visited a lot of people. We got with our friends at Ford Motor Company. Edsel Ford introduced us to a man named Jim Farley and Mr. Farley, if you want to hear the whole story I’ll tell you.
“Pocono testing May 28 of ’08. We had missed the 600 and Edsel Ford was looking for a phone number for a four-star general that we were friends with and he called me. He said, ‘Why haven’t you called me? What’s going on?’ And I said, ‘Mr. Ford. I’m just ashamed to. We’ve run so poorly and we’re missing races.’ He said, ‘We’ve got to fix that. I’m going to have someone call you in the morning.’ So the next morning, which was Wednesday, I think, Mr. Jim Farley from Ford Motor Company called us and he said, ‘We’ve got to fix your program. Why don’t you come up here.’ So within two hours we had no clothes, wore what we had on and headed to the airport and left just like we were. We went to Michigan and bought clothes to go visit Mr. Farley – stayed up there two days to get to him and we met with him and told him our problems and it was just like talking to someone you’ve known for years and he said, ‘OK, we’re gonna fix this.’ There’s a lot of stuff in between that and then and I won’t go into all that, but that’s how we started to come back.”
EDDIE WOOD — HOW MIGHT THIS CHANGE YOUR IMMEDIATE FUTURE FROM 17 RACES? COULD THAT GROW? “I’m gonna let Len answer that because he keeps up with the money.”
LEN WOOD – “We were talking about that earlier. I think we had a pretty big payday today. We were talking about running the first five. I think Martinsville, here we come. That will be the sixth race and then on to Texas from there. Hopefully, somebody watching us today stirred a little interest up and maybe they’ll want to join us.”
TREVOR BAYNE – CAN YOU TALK ABOUT HAVING TO BUY A SUIT AND GO TO NEW YORK? “I think all 12 of us at dinner were joking around about that and none of us thought that was gonna be possible. I drove down here in my F-150 and I was planning on driving back, but they tell me somebody else is gonna have to drive it back for me. It’s insane because we were kidding around. ‘Did you bring enough clothes to go if you win the race?’ I was like, ‘Oh yeah, I’ve got this. I’ve got two t-shirts.’ I thought it was a big joke, but here we are. I guess I better call somebody up that can make a suit and get some clothes down here for me, but I’m pretty picky so I don’t know if I can just call anybody. This is so crazy. I don’t even know what to say. I almost feel undeserving because there are guys like Donnie and all these guys out here that are racing against us that have been trying to do this for so long, but there’s nobody that deserves it more than any of these guys sitting up here, so I’m just glad that I got to be the guy sitting behind the wheel for these guys to get this win.”
HOW DOES TREVOR RUNNING NATIONWIDE FOR POINTS AFFECT THE CUP PROGRAM? COULD YOU MAKE THE CHASE IF YOU RAN A FULL SCHEDULE? “I think the car still gets points, if I’m not mistaken so the car will still be in the running for all of that. I don’t know how the chase works – driver or car or what – but we’ll be the guys that say that we should have won the championship if that’s what it comes down to. I wish I could talk Mike Helton into letting me change the boxes. Maybe I can, so Mike, if you’re listening. But I think our plan is still to run the full Nationwide deal. It’s kind of crazy we came here with the only thing on the car was Ford Racing. They picked up this race because we had nothing on it. This team only has 17 races, so now maybe both of them will get a boost. We can keep doing this deal and that deal and whatever plays out, that’s how it was supposed to happen and we’ll just keep running with it.”
TONY STEWART, BOBBY LABONTE, KURT BUSCH AND MARK MARTIN – ALL VETERANS WHO HAVE NEVER WON A DAYTONA 500. WHAT ARE YOU THINKING? “Now that you put it that way I’m a little worried that one of them is gonna come after me tonight. I’m gonna have to sleep with one eye open, but that’s why I said I felt a little undeserving, but these guys definitely deserve it. They can all tell you on the radio, if you listened to that last restart, I’m leading and I’m saying, ‘Who can I push? Who can I let in front of me to push across this thing because our car was so fast as a pusher?’ I was gonna brake and let Tony Stewart get down and all of a sudden here comes the 47 car just pushing away. Bobby Labonte, he did an awesome job. That was the best restart we’ve had all weekend. That was kind of an area we had struggled, not getting hooked up. We dropped back. You saw it in the duels. The last restart of the Nationwide race with Ricky Stenhouse. He did an incredible job, but my mistake kind of messed us up there, and then here, all day, our restarts kind of dropped us back and then we’d come back to the front. So I’m thinking, ‘Oh no. We’re leading now. That’s kind of cool to say that we were leading on the start of the green-white-checkered,’ and then I told somebody earlier, I said, ‘I got to the white flag and I said at least we can say we led the white flag lap of the Daytona 500.’ And then we get to turn four and we’re still leading and I’m like, ‘Somebody is gonna pass us. What’s gonna happen here?’ And nobody ever did. It’s just, ‘Wow. Really.”
WERE YOU RACING DEFENSIVELY? “Honestly, it seems a little bit too easy there at the end. I expected another pack to come up just like they had the whole time. The second pack seemed to have the benefit of the big push. That was the first time I worked with Bobby Labonte the whole race, so maybe we should have just hooked up earlier, but we were pushing David Ragan there. I thought that was gonna be the deal, just hook up to David and push him and keep him from getting wrecked. That’s why I liked being the pusher all day. I didn’t want to be in a situation where somebody would be behind us and possibly turn us. I guess there at the end on the last straightaway I raced defensively. I saw Carl Edwards coming up. I pulled down to get a push from him and it just worked out perfect.”
TREVOR BAYNE – WHY DO YOU THINK DRIVERS LIKE JEFF GORDON AND OTHERS FELT GOOD WORKING WITH YOU? “I have no idea, other than the fact that we had a fast race car and everybody wants to be hooked up to a fast race car, so when we qualified third that kind of sparked everything. They were like, ‘Wow, maybe we need that 21 car pushing us.’ So I don’t want to say it’s anything I did any differently than any other rookie, but we were just fast. I can’t thank Jeff and those guys enough for putting the trust in me. Even though I’m only 20, I’ve been doing it since I was five also, so I’ve got a little bit of experience, but definitely nothing like this, but really none of us had any experience doing this. So I really had a little bit of an advantage not having to re-learn it all. I got behind them. I was comfortable pushing. I just kept it cool and that Ford held up all day. At one point in the race I dropped a little bit of water pressure and they said it was just because it had cooled down, so that Ford engine kept running strong as a pusher. But all those guys that helped me along the way today, their trust in me showed that other people could trust me. Jeff Gordon taking that first step just showed everybody else that they can work with me and we’re here.”
WHERE DID THAT MOVE COME FROM AT THE END? “I’m here to win just like they are. I’m just glad we didn’t get turned on that deal. Of course, it might have been like the ’76 race and we’d have been sideways crossing the finish line torn up, but maybe still first. No, like I said, Bobby Labonte was just an awesome pusher and then I pulled down and it was like perfect timing. Donnie definitely had a plan for that. He’s like, ‘Alright, now.’ And I pulled down and it just hooked up perfect. Like Carl said, ‘I couldn’t get to you. I got to you and you just pulled back away.’ Thank you all for cheering for me. That’s really cool and I think it’s awesome too that these guys were cheering for me at Texas and they took that first step and said, ‘Hey, we’re gonna continue doing this.’ After Texas they could have said, ‘No more. You figure out what else you’re gonna do.’ But we saw the potential. The oldest team with the youngest driver, I think it’s so cool just to be sitting in here.”
HOW MUCH OF TODAY’S WIN WAS A RESULT OF YOUR HUMILITY EARLIER IN THE WEEK AND TODAY? “That’s definitely not how we planned it. I planned on winning the whole time, don’t get me wrong, but I planned on pushing somebody until that last lap. The whole race is going on and I’m just formulating, ‘OK, when is gonna be the best to make a move if there are no other groups pushing?’ But I think humility is something to hang on to. For all the young kids and everything doing their sports or whatever, just stay grounded. Remember, if it wasn’t for somebody else helping you, then you wouldn’t be sitting where you are. I’ve had so many people help me along the way that have kept me grounded, too. From my family getting me started to driving for Dale Earnhardt, Inc., to driving for MWR and Gary Bechtel and Diamond-Waltrip Racing, to Jack Roush, to these guys, somebody has helped you get there. You didn’t do it on your own, so when you think about it that way, it will keep you humble and I think those kind of people will always be rewarded for it.”
TREVOR BAYNE CONTINUED – DID YOU PLAY A SCENARIO GROWING UP IN YOUR MIND EVER ABOUT BEING ON THE LAST LAP OF THE DAYTONA 500? “Oh yeah, when we met the first time at dinner the other night when we were joking around about it when and I never expected to be sitting in here and I still don’t think it is real. Sorry if I am bouncing around on questions and answers but I figure I can do whatever I want to since it is just a dream anyways.”
LEN WOOD – WHAT WERE YOU GUYS DOING ON THE PIT BOX WHEN IT CAME DOWN TO THE GREEN-WHITE-CHECKERED? “For me it was trying to help Donnie with the fuel mileage with all the yellows and us working on trying to save fuel on each yellow. We were planning on the green-white-checkered and I think at the end we could have run on to about 215. A lot of that was due to Trevor not getting out of gear but using long gears. We are just tickled to be here. I don’t know what else to say.”
TREVOR BAYNE CONTINUED – HOW DID YOU CELEBRATE YOUR BIRTHDAY YESTERDAY AND ARE YOU PREPARED FOR THE CELEBRITY THAT IS ABOUT TO COME YOUR WAY? “I don’t know if I am prepared for that. To answer your question, we had a birthday dinner Friday night before the Nationwide race with my crew from Nationwide and my Cup guys at a seafood restaurant. Everybody was together, my friends and my mom and dad. It was really cool. Last night on my actual birthday we just went to bed. Before that we rode around on the golf cart and into the campgrounds and hung out with some of the fans. A couple of my buddies got in a wheel barrel race and they won that two. So that is what inspired me today. It was fun to go out and see the fans that come to support us and the good time they have at these races. This is cool. This will be the best birthday celebration I have ever had tonight.”
WHAT HAPPENED TO DAVID RAGAN AND WHAT WERE YOU THINKING AT THAT MOMENT? “I wanted to keep David up there. That was our buddy and our Ford teammate that we could push. I planned on being the pusher. That rule is tough. If you are the leader, you want to be able to go wherever you want and as fast as you want as long as you go in that box. I can see where NASCAR is coming from on that. The lane change was made. Do I agree with it? I don’t know what to say because we are sitting here in victory lane and I will take a win however I can get it. I hate that for David though. It might not have worked out though and neither of us might have ended up on victory lane if he hadn’t gotten black flagged but I think they deserved it too and I gotta thank them for helping us get up there. If it weren’t for them we wouldn’t have been in that situation to take the lead after that because they worked with us to get us up to the front.”
DO YOU REALIZE YOU JOIN AJ FOYT, CALE YARBOROUGH, TINY LUND AND DAVID PEARSON AS DAYTONA 500 WINNERS FOR THE WOOD BROTHERS? “That is incredible. I am telling you it is just incredible to be a part of this group, it really is. When was the last 500 for you guys? 1976 was the last one I think which is 13 years before I was born. Just to get at you again Marty (laughter). It is an incredible list. To be added to that list period is crazy. Especially in our first attempt. It sets the bar for this team. We don’t expect to win them all but we know we can now.”
CAN YOU GO BACK TO WHEN THIS DEAL FIRST CAME ABOUT AND YOU WERE TOLD YOU WOULD GET THIS RIDE AND WHAT YOUR LIFE HAS BEEN LIKE SINCE THAT DAY? “I don’t really know how the Texas deal came together; these guys could tell you more about that. I knew that Donnie Wingo was just making a transition to them from Roush and I had signed up with Roush. We wanted to get into that race so that I could run for the 500. If I didn’t run Texas we didn’t know if I could run here. They Wood Brothers were kind enough to let me drive their car at Texas and we were very successful. We had an awesome day together. These guys feel like family. They are here to race, no other motives than that. We just clicked. Donnie and I hit it off the first time we talked and it seemed we would get along great. The offseason came along and I had a decision to make between Nationwide and Cup and if I wanted to run a more limited schedule in Cup and be a guaranteed full time Nationwide driver or if I wanted to take half and half, which is kind of what I did. I couldn’t tell you enough, but that is the best decision I ever made, to stay with these guys. I can’t thank them enough for saying they wanted to keep me in their car. That is awesome. They have never had rookie stripes on their car before this. I know I mess up the paint scheme a little bit, but I am glad we did it.
DONNIE WINGO CONTINUED – WHAT WERE YOU TALKING TO TREVOR ABOUT JUST BEFORE THE LAST TWO LAPS? “In the last minute there he came on there and asked what does he do now. I told him the best thing to do was to line up with whoever is behind us and hopefully we get enough push and they can lock up and be in front of these guys. We were lucky to have Bobby Labonte there and he gave us a push to get us out there and made a move to block Carl and gave us another push to get to victory.”
TREVOR BAYNE CONTINUED – DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHO TINY LUND WAS? “I can’t say that I have watched any races. I have really had to study the history of the Wood Brothers. They took me through the shop on one of the first days and showed me all the pictures on the wall. I haven’t been to the museum yet, but they took me to that one area and showed me the Indianapolis win and I am sure that one of those pictures was him in there. They have got some cool ones, all the way through. I got a little history lesson, but didn’t get to watch any of those races.”
WHAT WAS THE BIGGEST THING THAT HAS HAPPENED IN YOUR LIFE BEFORE TODAY AND THE BIGGEST THING IN RACING BEFORE TODAY? “The biggest thing I have ever done or could do is finding Christ. That is the reason I am here. He has put me here for this reason. I didn’t even lose it for the 500 win, but that almost made me lose it. That gives us purpose. These are great things, but they go away with time and that is something that can never go away.”
DO YOU THINK YOU ARE THE NEXT BIG THING IN NASCAR AND WILL YOU NEED SPARKLING GRAPE JUICE TO CELEBRATE TONIGHT? “That is funny, the first race I ever won in a stock car they gave me sparkling cider and I couldn’t figure out how to get the cork off and all the guys are ducking trying to dodge it in case it shot off. I don’t know if I am the next big thing. I hope so, but I hope we can prove it. I don’t want it to be handed to us easy. I want to earn it and I think we are doing that. Winning races and running up front, we are earning it. It is real. We are really sitting here and these guys have given me the equipment to shine and we are running with it.”
YOU ARE UP ALMOST 8,000 NEW MEMBERS OF YOUR TWITTER PAGE. YOU ARE ALMOST TO 16,000. “What? I got from six to 16 in a hour? I have been working at that for a long time. That kind of makes me mad. (laughter) What in the world?
DID YOU HAVE TIME TO SPEAK WITH DAVID PEARSON THIS WEEK AND WHAT DID YOU TALK ABOUT? “The first thing he said was to be careful. That was the mindset that I had to have at the beginning. I didn’t forget that or take it lightly. We had to survive that whole race. All the crashes, we had to be there at the end to have a chance at that. The next thing he said was that he hoped we could do what he did in the 21. We did that too, so hopefully he will give us more advice and we can keep following it up. David Pearson is the man and it is so cool to be following in his footsteps in this car. One of his friends that have been hanging out with him for a long time knew my grandfather when he used to race and he raced around South Carolina just locally. That was really cool to hear that those guys raced with my grandfather which was really neat.
YOU WERE NINE YEARS OLD WHEN DALE EARNHARDT DIED, WHAT ARE YOUR MEMORIES OF THAT? “I remember everything about it actually. I was at my grandparents house watching the race when the accident happened. We lived about five miles away from my grandparents, so when the race was over we left and went to our house and that is when the announcement was made. Our whole family, you know the impact it had on everybody, I was nine years old and I was teary eyed. I understood even then the impact he had on our sport and what an amazing man he was. It is crazy that we are sitting here 10 years later. It has gone by fast. I remember everything about that. It is crazy. I was racing go carts. I can’t thank Dale enough for everything he did. He laid the foundation for the safety, the aggressiveness and everything he did for the sport. He was a real person. I think we might get away from that sometimes, but that is something he always did. He was always Dale. I took from him to just be yourself. I feel honored and undeserving to be here10 years later for the anniversary.”
LEN WOOD CONTINUED – KNOWING WHAT FORD MOTOR COMPANY HAS BEEN THROUGH IN DEARBORN RECENTLY, WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO YOU GUYS TO HAVE JUSTIFIED MR. FARLEY’S FAITH IN YOU AND THE FACT YOU HAVE TURNED EVERY BLUE OVAL SHOWROOM INTO HAPPY HOUR MONDAY MORNING? “Ford Motor Company really did a phenomenal job in their recovery. They didn’t borrow any money and I am really proud of them for not having to do that. They were prepared and they knew what to do. They saw the crisis coming and got ready for it. They have great leadership up there with Mr. Farley and Mark Fields and they knew what to do. We are so proud to be a part of those guys. We have raced Ford Motor Company products, our Dad and everybody did from 1950 to now, that is one of the most important things to us and our family. The big thing is that we are the guys who have won the 600th win. I think Richard Petty won the 100th one. I was talking to him about that a little while ago. We were looking for the 600th win today as a company and for us to be the guys that gave it to them with Trevor at the wheel is just a story book ending for it. I am just so proud to be a part of their world. They mean the world to us.”
DONNIE WINGO CONTINUED – CAN YOU TALK ABOUT TREVORS MATURITY? “I have been fortunate to have worked with a lot of good rookies and young drivers over the years and like I said before, the one thing I notice in Trevor that stands out above some of the other ones is his knack for racing. A lot of these young guys can go fast, but when they get in a race they don’t know which way to go. I think it is the way he races around other guys and the respect he gets from them, being able to draft with Jeff and some of the veterans, I think they instill a lot of faith in him and that makes him stand above some of the other young guys I have worked with.”
TREVOR BAYNE CONTINUED – LAST YEAR THE WINNER OF THIS RACE BROUGH HOME $1.5 MILLION. WHAT WILL BE THE FIRST THING YOU BUY? “I don’t know if I will splurge. I am definitely not putting it up for retirement yet, I am going to stay around for awhile. Hopefully this money will help us get some more races and there are a lot of foundations and ministries that need support. Back to Back ministries in Mexico is one and there are a lot of good organizations that need some help and we will help them out as much as we can. I don’t know what I am going to buy. I like those Ford Raptors, but maybe I can talk the Ford guys into giving me one of those for this win so I don’t have to buy it. I don’t know, we will have to see what can do about that. Tim Duerr, I like those Raptors man, hook us up.”
IF THEY CAN PUT MORE RACES TOGETHER WILL YOU RACE THE CAR AND CAN YOU CHANGE YOUR MIND AND NOT RACE FOR NATIONWIDE POINTS OR HOW DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT? “I don’t really know. I didn’t expect to have this situation come up honestly. I haven’t talked to them honestly. You know what is funny? Jack Roush joked around with us this morning about it. Jack said, ‘You know, if you win this thing or do good in it, then one of us is going to be mad if you switch points. Len is going to be mad at me if I keep you in Nationwide and I am going to be mad if you go run for Cup.’ They were kidding about it, but that is so funny to me now. I don’t know if that is an option, it might not be. Hopefully we can contend for a championship in whichever series. I think our Nationwide program is really stout this year and I thought we had a chance to win that race yesterday. I couldn’t get it out of third gear to go to fourth on the restart. We have two great race teams and I am proud to be a part of these two great organizations and with Ford as the connecting piece.”
EDDIE WOOD CONTINUED – IS IT TRUE THAT PART OF YOUR SHOP WAS A TREE AT ONE POINT? “The truth of that is that when this started, our grandfather Jay Walter Wood, my father Glen and Leonard went and bought a 1940 Ford and they came to the home place and they told the grandfather we were going to race. First thing he said was, ‘Don’t unload that mess here’, but they did anyway of course. There was a beech three, and now it is like 150 years old. The engine they pulled out of that car they threw a chain over the lowest limb and that was what they pulled it out with. Our racing really started under a beech tree which is still there by the way. We had some seeds to it and we still have some in a little box. People that want one, I will run you down somewhere or you run me down. My sister made a bunch of them. It is an actual seed from that tree.”
TREVOR BAYNE CONTINUED – YOU WERE PUSHING MOST OF THE DAY, WAS TEMPERATURE A PROBLEM? “You know, I was never the leader until I think the last lap. We pushed the whole time. Ford did a really good job of making this engine durable. We were probably hotter than some of the other cars at times because we pushed so long, but the engine held up. We had temperatures up to 270 degrees. I had to be careful not to lose all our water. I ran around 260 the whole time which is hotter than you normally see them. Our car did good at staying in line and our car cooled down fast when I pulled out of line.”
DID YOU EVER HAVE ANY MECHANICAL PROBLEMS TODAY AND YOU SAID ON THE RADIO YOU DIDN’T KNOW HOW TO GET TO VICTORY LANE, CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THAT? “As a pusher I had to do a lot of breaking there at times, especially when we came up on big packs. The cars in front would check up. There were times David and I were half throttle just to keep from running over people. I think that is what is important. Both cars had a big responsibility. The front had to guide the train and make sure you stayed hooked up. The back guy’s main responsibility was to make sure you don’t crash. That is what I had to do all day. That and keep the thing cool and push him up through there. There were times I had to check up and let him come back to us. Getting to victory lane was funny. Thanks for throwing that out there to everybody. I had to throw it in reverse and back up. The jack man on the 56, I had to ask him how to get to victory lane and he pointed me there. I am glad we made it alright.”
BEING THAT YOU ARE FROM TENNESSEE, DO YOU THINK YOU WILL BE BIGGER AT UT THAN BRUCE PEARL OR PHIL FULMER? “I don’t know man, that is tough to overcome right there. We had Peyton Manning too. I think everyone in Knoxville are Colts fans too. Kenny Chesney actually went to the same school I did. Maybe I could warm up him or something. There are a lot of great things coming out of Knoxville. I love getting back there. These guys still get back to Virginia. I try to remember where I came from. I have a lot of friends and family here from Knoxville and I can’t wait to get back and see everybody.”
EDDIE WOOD – WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO HAVE YOU DAD AND LEONARD IN VICTORY LANE? WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO THEM? “To them, today is probably, if they were in here they’d probably both tell you that today is the biggest win of their life. The really cool thing that happened when the race was over, I was watching Trevor do burnouts a little bit, and then I saw Richard Petty walk up and he said, ‘Where’s your dad?’ And I said, ‘Right over here.’ So we went and found my dad and Richard Petty took him into Victory Lane. That was pretty awesome right there. You had to be there to see it to know what I’m talking about, but, like I said, there are so many people involved in this that it’s just incredible. But I think they’ve been rooting for us to get going and to get back and, like I said, we went so far down and to come back and I was gonna add to what Marty said a while ago – the man responsible was Edsel Ford. He was on our box all day. He never left our side and he went to Victory Lane with us. That just said it all right there. That’s Henry Ford’s great grandson. I get back to the Ford thing, but that’s what it’s all about with us, and his three sons were there. That part of it, everything that happened today outside the race – just the people that were around us supporting us were just like family. I’m just so proud of that. For Edsel to be a part of it, my dad and Leonard to be a part of it – to be here, you couldn’t write a script. It’s just the best thing to ever happen to us.”
TREVOR BAYNE – WHEN DID YOU SAY THE PRAYER? “We did it right before the race started. We were sitting on pit road and normally I call the guys over to the car, but I just wanted everybody to be a part of it. Definitely, I want to model myself after Jesus. He was the man. I want to follow in his footsteps and just model myself after everything that he did, which is impossible, but it was so cool to have a team that supported that. To have these guys around, the crew chief, Donnie was a part of it. We did it yesterday before our Nationwide race and just not forget that because that really is bigger than anything we have going on here. He’s blessed us for sure.”
CAN YOU REMEMBER WHAT YOU DID LAST YEAR DURING THE DAYTONA 500? “I was down here watching it. Ever since I signed with DEI I started coming down here and watching them and just learning and taking it in and just trying to be a part of the action. I’d run to Victory Lane and congratulate whatever driver it was just to see what it was like to be there. Now we finally get to have our own Victory Lane celebration. It’s crazy and it has happened so fast. Two years ago, I didn’t have a ride. I sat out six months. I raced one Hooters Pro Cup race that year for my dad’s race team. He always brought me up through the Allison Legacy Series and go-karts and then got me to Hooters Pro Cup and I ran for him, and then I drove for DEI. At the end of my season when I was 17, we lost our funding at DEI. That was the frenzy year, so I sat out for six months and waited on something to happen. This was two years ago and I met a lady by the name of Danielle Randell Bower, who introduced me to Gary Bechtel and his son, who then went with me to MWR and they formed that partnership there, so I started driving for them and that’s what gave me my spark into NASCAR to show everybody we can do it. Last year, when we made the transition to Roush Fenway, Jack was quick to pick up on us and believe in us and then the Wood Brothers the same thing. Me sitting here is just because of a lot of people who have believed in me. Obviously, I kind of know what I’m doing sometimes, so that’ s helped, but just having support behind me all the time. At that point two years ago, I didn’t know what I would be doing, but it’s happened so fast. I never ran late models. I ran like 10 Legends races and one Bandolero race or something, but I ran Legacy cars, Hooters Pro Cup, Camping World East and then straight to Nationwide. It’s just been really cool to see how this has progressed.”
WHEN DID IT ALL COME TOGETHER AS FAR AS A PLAN TO WIN? “Really, what I thought was gonna happen is I was finishing second or third or fourth because I figured it would come down to a battle between two groups, kind of like we’ve seen. I didn’t want to break off from him if there was another group coming because I wanted to see a Ford win, obviously. With him being a Roush Fenway driver, I’d like to push him across instead of breaking off from him and both of us losing the race, so that was my plan – to just tag on to him, push him around. Obviously, if we broke away by 15-20 car lengths coming down the frontstretch I would have tried something, so that was my plan all along. I don’t know how it worked out that we were the lead car, but it did.”
[/media-credit]Most of the teams in NASCAR, especially the successful ones are owned by some millionaire who wants to dabble in this sport. I don’t count Jack Roush or Richard Childress in this group. Those guys started at the bottom and worked their way up, but how many true family organizations are there? The Woods are one of the few left and it was gratifying to see them in their rightful place—victory lane.
