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Wednesday, February 12, 2003
From a child to a team owner, Wood grows up in Daytona
By GODWIN KELLY
NEWS-JOURNAL SPORTS WRITER
DAYTONA BEACH — Eddie Wood is the oldest son of Glen Wood, who started Wood Brothers Racing with his brother, Leonard, in 1953. In the early 1990s, Glen and Leonard turned the operation of the race team to Glen´s sons, Eddie and Len Wood.
Eddie Wood has spent his whole life in the racing game, first as a “track brat,” then working for his father and uncle at the race shop. Wood has been coming to Daytona Beach for NASCAR racing since he was a toddler.
 Eddie Wood (Photo: The News-Journal) |
“The very first time I came down here that I can remember was probably about 1966. Ever since then I´ve been down here twice a year, every year.
My biggest memory was when David Pearson, who was driving our race car, and Richard Petty crashed on the last lap of the 1976 Daytona 500. I was on the two-way radio talking with Pearson that day.
It was crazy seeing them crash coming off of Turn 4 on the last lap. Pearson kept his engine running and he was on the radio, ‘Where is Petty? Where is Petty?’ He was able to drive it over the finish line to win the race.
At that time in Winston Cup racing, every team had two radios. One was in the car and one was in the pit with one guy talking to the driver. Leonard, my uncle who started the team with my father, Glen Wood, didn´t want to do it and told me to do it.
Winning the Daytona 500 was a big deal, but another big deal for me was when my son, Jon, won a World Karting Association national championship over there at Municipal Stadium a few years ago. He now races in the Truck Series.
Daytona is just kind of special to me. This is where you´re supposed to be if you´re racing stock cars. You´re supposed to be here in January testing and back here in February and July racing.
Is´s always been a big deal for me to be down here. I know all the places to go. Is´s like being back at home. Every night we either eat at a little Italian restaurant across from the condo we rent or we go to Steak-N-Shake. Len, my brother, likes to tell people during one Speed Weeks down here, he ate 38 hamburgers for lunch and dinner for 11 straight days. He thinks Is´s some kind of record.
The first time I remember coming here I was amazed at how fast the cars were. I was thinking, ‘Wow, how do they do that?’ I was too young to come into the garage area. They guarded the garage area like Fort Knox.
So while our dads were busy, we were out in the infield in station wagons with our mothers. If it was summer, we´d sit in somebody´s station wagon until we boiled it over with the air conditioner running, then move on to somebody else´s car.
I´d play with other kids whose fathers were drivers or worked on race teams. we´d pal around. We were out there close to Lake Lloyd with our moms. I just remember how big this place was. I thought the Speedway was so cool when I was a kid.
Daytona is one constant in my world and my life. We come down here to Daytona and the beach is still there, the racetrack is still there. I like to sit on the beach and think about stuff that happened to me years ago.
Is´s a cool place to be. If I weren´t racing like we do, I would like to live here. I really like this area.” -- Eddie Wood
Special Report: 100 YEARS OF RACING |  |