NASCAR WCUP: This week in Ford Racing

Posted By Terry Callahan
Motorsports Editor, The Auto Channel

The Wood Brothers have won 12 NASCAR Winston Cup races at Atlanta Motor Speedway, more than any other team, but it has been eight years since the No. 21 has visited victory lane. Ironically, the last time Eddie and Len Wood made that trip was in the 1993 Motorcraft 500 when Morgan Shepherd took the checkered flag ahead of Ernie Irvan.

This weekend's race is now known as the Cracker Barrel 500. Motorcraft is back as primary sponsor for the Wood Brothers, and Elliott Sadler sit in a tie for ninth in the Winston Cup points standings, his first visit to the top-10 in his Winston Cup career. Could that mean the streak will end when the series resumes this weekend in Atlanta? Eddie and Len Wood and driver Elliott Sadler spoke about that possibility.

ELLIOTT SADLER --21-- Motorcraft Taurus -- WHAT DOES BEING IN THE TOP-10 THIS WEEK DO FOR YOU AND THE TEAM GOING INTO ATLANTA? "We just want a good points day in Atlanta. That's all we've been doing in these first races this year is trying to race for points to make sure we are in good shape as far as the one-round qualifying and provisionals. We've been running pretty decent, probably better than we ever have but we have also been doing well as far as the points racing too. We've tried to stay out of trouble, staying by ourselves on the track, and racing when we need to. It's worked out pretty good. I think we've had a lot of momentum on our team ever since we tested in Kentucky in December. We felt like we would have a really good year, and we've gotten off to a good start. We wrecked in Daytona the last two years in a row and we just didn't run good at Vegas. It's never been a good track for us. And we had problems at Rockingham so we never got off to a really good start. We felt like we were digging ourselves out of a hole. So finally this year we feel like we've gotten off to a good start and we are going to try to grow on it."

DO YOU FEEL MORE COMFORTABLE AND CONFIDENT THIS SEASON? "Yeah, a lot more. I think the first year you come in you're kind of in awe of everything that's going on -- not only on the race track but off the race track with all of the fans and media and other stuff that goes on around this sport. Then in the second year you feel like you're under pressure the whole year to really try and better your rookie year, and that gets yourself in trouble. Everybody says it's the sophomore jinx, but I just think you try too hard and overdo it by trying to make up for stuff you can't do. I think that resulted in the season we had last year, but this year I'm more relaxed. I know what to expect on the race track and I think I can do a lot more things in a car than I've been able to do the last two years. There's a lot of confidence on this team, particularly with me as a driver now from when I first came in. It just takes you a while to settle down in this. It's hard to grow week to week in racing because things change so much track to track. It's not like we play and then get two weeks off to think about it and then play again. We race every weekend. As soon as we get home Monday morning, we're concentrating on the next race 100 percent. So, I think it takes a lot of the winter time and off season to really gather your thoughts to where you can sit back and think of things you can do to make yourself better."

IT'S BEEN A LONG TIME SINCE THE WOOD BROTHERS HAVE WON A RACE. WHAT'S THE ATMOSPHERE LIKE IN THE SHOP? IS THERE STRESS OVER THIS? "We all want to win. I mean, it's been since 1982 that this team has sat on a pole, so those are two really major things we really want to try to do this year. But right now our goal as a race team is to try to be in the top-15 to top-20 in points after Atlanta. For the first half of the season, we will be OK in provisionals and show Motorcraft how much they've helped this team by coming on board. We think there are three to four tracks right now where we can go and have a shot to win with those tracks being Texas, Bristol and Dover. Those are the three tracks I think I can go to and honestly have a shot to win with the right circumstances. The rest of the tracks, we feel we just need to get a good finish, try to run all day and get as many points as we can get and go on to the next day. I think we're going in the right direction and making our team better. We know we're not at that point right now. We haven't been in that situation yet where we're running for the win and running for the lead. We're probably gonna have to do it a few times and lose a few races the wrong way first before we can win one, so that's just something we have to work up to."

DO YOU REMEMBER THE LAST TIME THE WOOD BROTHERS WON? "Oh yeah I remember. It was a rain delay. I remember watching it on TV because it was on a Monday and he won the thing. They always ran very well there with Morgan and it was just one of those tracks. The Wood Brothers have had a good history at Atlanta and Charlotte and a lot of the mile-and-a-half tracks, so hopefully that's where we'll be able to excel as well. I've kept up with who had their last pole and who had their last win and what we need to do to get back to where they were. I think this team is better prepared this year than it's ever been, at least since I've been here. All of the guys -- Eddie, Len and Pat -- we're so much further ahead this year than last year that it's unreal. We think good things are gonna happen and hopefully they'll come pretty quick."

LEN WOOD, Co-Owner --21-- Motorcraft Taurus -- YOUR LAST WIN WAS IN THE MOTORCRAFT 500 AT ATLANTA AND NOW YOU'RE GOING BACK THERE WITH THE MOTORCRAFT TAURUS. DO YOU THINK THIS MIGHT BET YOU OVER THE HUMP? "Hopefully. Elliott runs real good at Atlanta. Places like Atlanta, Texas and Charlotte are his best tracks, so hopefully we can go down there and qualify well. Maybe the planets will line up and we can bring Motorcraft back to victory lane."

WHAT'S IT BEEN LIKE THESE LAST EIGHT YEARS TRYING TO WIN AGAIN? "It's been tough. It's hard to describe. There's always hope that we can turn it around and we think we've got it turned around now. We're the highest we've been in the points at this stage of the season in the last four years. If we can get a couple more good races, then we feel like wherever we are at that point in the standings is where we'll end up the season. We looked at the books and after four or five races, unless something strange happens or you have major problems, that's about where you finish. But as far as not having won, you've got to keep thinking that you can do it every week and that this is going to be the one. We felt good the way we came out of Daytona. We wound up 18th, which was good for wrecking two cars. At Rockingham we came out of there with an 11th-place finish. We hoped for a top-10, but couldn't get Jarrett there at the end. Keeping the guys motivated is probably the hardest part, but right now we've got a good group of guys and a new crew chief that is working well with the driver. The driver's confidence is up, so there shouldn't be anything to keep us from winning races."

YOU'VE SEEN A LOT OF TEAMS COME AND GO DURING YOUR DAYS IN RACING. WHY HAVE YOU GUYS BEEN ABLE TO SURVIVE? IS IT BECAUSE IT'S THE FAMILY BUSINESS? "It's still a business and our goal is to win every week. If we run 10th or 15th, we're not satisfied, but on the other hand it is a business. The dollars we spend have to make sense and with the help of Motorcraft and becoming more involved with Roush Racing, that's helped us become more consistent. A lot of teams have come and gone like J.D. Stacy or DiGard -- teams that have dominated and then you don't hear from them again. I feel like we're making our second round through this sport. Through 1984 we ran a limited schedule and in 1985 me and Eddie and daddy (Glen) all talked about it. We said we've either got to get in or get out. That's when we made up our minds to do this full-time. We hired the extra people and bought the extra parts and equipment, so that was kind of the start of our second go-round. The sixties and seventies were different. Back then you were racing four to seven or eight cars. Sometimes you only had to race four cars that really had a chance to win. Now, thirty cars have a chance to win every week under the right situation. We've just kept plugging along at it and doing the best we can."

EDDIE WOOD, Co-Owner --21-- Motorcraft Taurus -- IT'S BEEN A LONG TIME SINCE YOU GUYS HAVE BEEN TO VICTORY LANE. IS THERE ONE THING YOU CAN PUT YOUR FINGER ON AS TO WHY? "You have to put the right people with the right combination of ingredients. I think we've done that now with Motorcraft coming on board. They've given us enough extra funding, which we didn't necessarily have in the past, so that's helped a lot."

WHAT ABOUT THAT LAST WIN IN ATLANTA? "If I remember correctly, we had an alternator go out that day. Ironically, we had a Motorcraft battery and it lived all day. I had forgotten it was the Motorcraft 500, but it was. That's pretty cool. Right now we're planning on taking a new car to Atlanta for this week. It's fresh out of the wind tunnel in Canada and it's got the latest and greatest stuff we've got, so hopefully it'll do well. That's one of Elliott's better tracks and one of our better tracks, so hopefully we'll do well."

IF IT WASN'T FOR MOTORCRAFT COMING ON BOARD AND THE ALLIANCE WITH ROUSH RACING, WOULD THE WOOD BROTHERS STILL BE AROUND? "If we hadn't gotten involved with Jack, probably not. Being a single-car team now, you're just asking for trouble because you can't have enough people. You can get enough stuff to do it, but you can't get enough people. There's not enough time to do the technology and tunnel stuff and research with the motors that Jack can offer, so now we lease motors from Jack. He worries about horsepower and we don't. We're running his chassis and aero program, so you basically know that's going to be in the ballpark of where you need to be, so we don't have to worry about that. All you've got to worry about is getting all of the mechanical pieces and putting it together the right way. That includes having the right group of people and I feel the nucleus of Pat and Elliott and Mike Smith and the rest of the crew is really working. I'm further away from it than I was because I did the crew chief part, but now that Pat's doing it I can see a lot of things I couldn't see before. I can see the improvement and how things are coming together. We're gonna have a bad race here or there, but all in all, I think we're gonna be much, much better than we've been and we're building on that. That's the key -- to keep building."

DO YOU REMEMBER WHAT IT'S LIKE TO CELEBRATE IN VICTORY LANE? "Oh yeah, I remember it. I remember winning that race in Atlanta with Morgan and remember the one with Michael (Waltrip) in Charlotte when we won The Winston. On those two particular days we had it all together and it worked out. Now, you've got to have it together and then some. It's not just having the best car on a particular day, your driver's got to do his deal and the crew is a big part of it too. The crew has always been a big part of it, but more so now because if you make one mistake, you're all of a sudden in the back. It doesn't take a huge mistake, so you've just got to focus on all that and keep all of your things lined up like they're supposed to be. We feel like our best races are coming up in the next couple of months. Elliott is really good at Darlington and Bristol and Texas. If we can get our stuff turned around for Martinsville, I'm sure he's gonna be fine there because he ran well there in Late Models. We're trying to test at the places we've been weak at and fix the basic stuff. If you start struggling and begin to panic, you start getting into areas that you're not supposed to be in. That's when you're really asking for it and there are some people in here doing that now. Thankfully, we're not. We're sticking to basics and not getting out way over here in left field and try something that might or might now work. We're trying to stay the course and not stray from it."

YOU'VE WON MORE RACES AT ATLANTA THAN ANYONE, SO YOU MUST BE OPTIMISTIC. "We've always had a pretty good combination there and Pat ran well there with his stuff (when he was with Roush Racing as crew chief for Kevin Lepage). Hopefully, we can come up with a good combination between the two and have a good weekend. We'll have a new tire at Atlanta, so we'll have to deal with that, but the tires we've had so far have been really good. There hasn't been a lot of variance like there has been in the past, so Goodyear has done a good job with that. We're looking forward to Atlanta. When you get off to a good start you look forward to every one of them. You want to race every day and that's kind of the way we are right now."

Text Provided By Ford

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