It is safe to say that Wood Brothers Racing, the oldest continuously active team in the NASCAR Cup Series, has seen the offspring that was stock car racing back in the day grow into the seasoned veteran that the sport is now.
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Founded by Glen Wood along with his brother Leonard back in 1950, the 2024 season saw the 70-year-old racing outfit celebrate its 100th victory in the sport.
Harrison Burton, son of former Cup Series driver Jeff Burton, drove the team’s #21 Ford Mustang entry to the checkered flag in P1 during this year’s fall Daytona race, marking the team’s achievement and perseverance over seven decades in racing.
However, the same was possible only after the team’s founders did their due diligence back in the day. In a 2014 issue of Henry Ford Magazine, the Wood brothers discussed how they were the men behind the modern-day pitstop that we take for granted in the sport.
Identifying how time spent in the pits could make or break races, the owners focussed more than ever on the element of speed during a stop, way before the same phenomenon cropped up on their rivals’ radars.
“It didn’t take us long to figure out that if you made a bad pit stop, you would be real far behind when you went back out on the track. I wouldn’t say we invented the pit stop. We concentrated on it more than others. We just figured out before everyone else that it needed to be done fast,” said Glen.
The best pitstop … ever??? pic.twitter.com/x8U9BUabf9
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) December 29, 2021
Sharing an anecdote of how the speed on pit road was achieved, Wood further reminisced on how his brother and co-founder Leonard who also undertook crew chief duties in the team found out a quicker way to jack their cars up.
“One of the biggest things we noticed was that it took as many as 15 pumps on the jack to get the car up. My brother Leonard came up with a faster jack that took fewer pumps to get the car off the ground. That jack, which we still have today, was the turning point in our stops,” revealed the late co-founder of the team.
In the modern day and age, a jack taking 15 pumps to lift a car is unheard of. It would rather be a comical sight to witness during a competitive pit stop in today’s times.
The teams’ and drivers’ pursuit of speed has lent them precision equipment capable of lifting a 3000+ pound racecar with just one push of the lever, with the vision for that need for speed lying with the Wood Brothers.
There's fast and then there's the No. 48 crew. @Alex_Bowman's pit crew is @Mechanix_Wear's 2024 Most Valuable Pit Crew! pic.twitter.com/sR2vcgN3nX
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) November 19, 2024
Glen Wood also pioneered how a modern pit crew has a host of college and former athletes running the show. Recognizing the need to assign each member a duty that played to his physical strengths and build, the founders were visionaries ahead of their times.
“We figured out who was best suited for certain jobs. My brother Delano was tall and stout and that made him best suited for being the jack man. In the early days, my brother Ray Lee was probably the quickest of the group, so naturally we made him the guy that changed the tires on the front of the car. Leonard was fast, too, so he changed rears. It took time, but we all fell into our roles,” they elaborated.
Longevity is one virtue that comes with understanding and experience, and that is exactly what Wood Brothers Racing has managed to showcase throughout its storied journey in the sport.
With visionary ideas to being one of the last gatekeepers of the sport’s heyday, it remains to be seen how well the organization adapts to a new talent behind the wheel of their car next season. Josh Berry is slated to join the outfit in 2025 as he continues his Cup Series journey with one of NASCAR’s most iconic names.
