When Harrison Burton first joined the Wooden Brothers forward of the 2022 season, one phrase was on his thoughts: legacy. “It’s positively a cool alternative and a giant duty to hold on that legacy, and do it the proper approach. That’s not misplaced on me,” he mentioned earlier than the season started.“I’ve all the time put that very same strain on myself to carry out and do nicely.”
If you happen to’re not steeped in NASCAR historical past, Burton’s discuss feeling strain to carry out whereas driving the No. 21 automobile would have sounded a bit unusual. Wooden Brothers Racing seems to be simply one other single-car crew that one way or the other nabs a uncommon win each decade or so. However, like Williams in Components 1, it is a crew that is left tire marks everywhere in the sport’s historical past books.
Wooden Brothers Racing is the oldest current crew in NASCAR — they ran their first Cup race in 1953, with Glen Wooden driving a Lincoln that had a No. 21 painted throughout the door. He based the crew alongside brothers Leonard, Delano, and Ray Lee, and collectively they constructed one of many sport’s most enduring presences.
Wooden Brothers
Whereas iconic organizations equivalent to Petty Enterprises, Yates Racing, and Junior Johnson & Associates have fallen by the wayside, Wooden Brothers stays. Whilst fellow Ford crew Stewart-Haas Racing — as soon as a powerhouse in NASCAR — prepares to shut up store on the finish of the 2024 Cup season, the Wooden Brothers present so indicators of slowing down.
The primary of many
In 1960, Glen himself delivered the crew its first Cup win, main each lap from pole place at Bowman Grey Stadium. Over time, the wins began flooding in, and the red-and-white No. 21 turned practically as well-known because the Petty blue No. 43 on the monitor. NASCAR Corridor of Famer David Pearson racked up 43 of the crew’s 100 race wins, together with 11 in a single season in 1973. Wooden Brothers Racing took its first Daytona 500 checkered flag in 1968, with Tiny Lund behind the wheel; the crew gained its fifth (and most up-to-date) Daytona 500 in 2011 with then-rookie Trevor Bayne.
Life in NASCAR’s Cup sequence is tough for a one-car crew. It took Harrison Burton’s chaotic last-lap mad sprint for Woods Brothers to succeed in 100, with Ryan Blaney having notched the crew’s 99th victory again in 2017, at Pocono. Wooden Brothers Racing hasn’t loved a multi-win season since 1981, and has solely earned three Cup victories within the twenty first century.
Trevor Bayne of Wooden Brothers Racing celebrating his 2011 Daytona 500 win
Photograph by: Motorsport.com / ASP Inc.
The Nice Recession practically spelled the tip of the historic race crew. Wooden Brothers was pressured to run a part-time schedule from 2007 by way of 2015 simply to maintain the doorways open. Since these unsure days, the crew’s aligned with Workforce Penske, providing sufficient help to assist WBR make the playoffs 3 times — together with, now, the 2024 season.
Even nonetheless, current success has been arduous for the group to search out. Since Blaney was promoted to the No. 12 Penske journey, Wooden Brothers Racing has hopscotched from drivers Paul Menard to Matt DiBenedetto and, the previous three seasons, Harrison Burton with little to indicate for it. Earlier than capturing the checkered flag at Daytona, they sat thirty fourth within the championship standings, counting just one top-ten this 12 months.
“We have to be higher. There’s no secret in that,” mentioned Wooden Brothers crew president Jon Wooden only one month in the past. “This can be a enterprise that’s based mostly on chemistry and it’s a sport that’s based mostly on outcomes and, proper now, we’re simply not having these outcomes.”
Watch: Harrison Burton ‘needed to do all the pieces’ to get win No. 100 for Wooden Brothers Racing
When Harrison Burton crossed the end line and earned that milestone victory for the crew, he inked himself into the file books. He joins Ryan Blaney (2017), Trevor Bayne (2011), Elliott Sadler (2001), Dale Jarrett (1991), Kyle Petty (1986), Tiny Lund (1963), and Glen Wooden himself (1960) because the drivers who’ve earned their first profession victory with the Wooden Brothers. A dozen NASCAR Corridor of Famers have pushed for the Wooden Brothers through the years, in addition to legends identified far past the realm of inventory automobile racing, equivalent to A.J. Foyt and Dan Gurney.
The Wooden Brothers additionally revolutionized pitstops, which, together with quick automobiles, turned a key ingredient to their success on monitor. The crew really joined up with Jim Clark and pitted his automobile en path to successful the 1965 Indianapolis 500. It is a race crew oozing with historical past and revered by all, whether or not it is successful or operating thirtieth. Woods Brothers have earned that.
After final Sunday, Burton spoke brazenly about crying in the course of the cool-down lap of his win. His scenario was a microcosm of Wooden Brothers Racing’s actuality: the crew hadn’t renewed Burton’s contract previous this season, which implies the driving force has no journey for 2025. Behind the crew’s shiny moments are some powerful realities. However that makes the wins really feel that rather more particular. (To not point out, the cash earned from making the playoffs will go a protracted method to bolstering the group — and perhaps shrinking the hole between now and win quantity 101.)
“That is past phrases,” remarked Eddie Wooden, CEO and co-owner of the crew after Burton’s massive Daytona. “This has been such a very long time coming, the hundredth win. We’ve been with Motorcraft Fast Lane and Ford Efficiency for over twenty years and also you simply can’t put that into phrases. Edsel Ford, all his household; Jim Farley… there’s simply so many individuals in our world to make this occur. It’s simply unbelievable.”
Even when it isn’t been simple the previous few many years, Wooden Brothers Racing — the longest-running crew in NASCAR historical past — nonetheless has the power to make the unbelievable occur.
Harrison Burton of Wooden Brothers Racing hoists the 2024 Daytona trophy, the crew’s a centesimal win
Photograph by: David Rosenblum / NKP / Motorsport Photos
Driver wins in Wooden Brothers Racing historical past
| Driver | Race wins |
| David Pearson | 43 |
| Cale Yarborough | 13 |
| Neil Bonnett | 9 |
| Marvin Panch | 8 |
| A.J. Foyt | 5 |
| Glen Wooden | 4 |
| Dan Gurney | 4 |
| Speedy Thompson | 2 |
| Kyle Petty | 2 |
| Tiny Lund | 1 |
| Curtis Turner | 1 |
| Donnie Allison | 1 |
| Buddy Baker | 1 |
| Dale Jarrett | 1 |
| Morgan Shepherd | 1 |
| Elliott Sadler | 1 |
| Trevor Bayne | 1 |
| Ryan Blaney | 1 |
| Harrison Burton | 1 |
