In an era where most NASCAR paint schemes change from week to week, one team can be quickly identified among its peers.
No matter the number or sponsor placement, the generation of the car, or even if the car is painted or wrapped, a car featuring cherry red on top from the tip of the hood to the back of the decklid with white on the side panels has become a familiar sight in NASCAR.
On the side is a gold No. 21, now back in its glistening, metallic form.
It’s a scheme that has undergone minor variations since the Wood Brothers brought it to the track for the first time in 1950.
Since that year, NASCAR’s oldest team has forged one of the most iconic legacies in racing, from inventing choreographed pit stops to gracing victory lane 99 times with Hall-of-Fame drivers.
The newest page to the team’s book came on April 26, as third-generation Wood family members Jon Wood, Jordan Wood Hicks and Keven Wood carry the team into its next phase as co-owners. Jon was named team president, inheriting the role from his father, Eddie.
Family is what the team is built on and centered around, pushing a drive to be successful at NASCAR’s highest level.
“The way our team has operated is the way it operated back in 1970, and ’80 and ’90,” Jon told Frontstretch. “Back then, you didn’t have team presidents, director of marketing, or a marketing department, or a finance department, or any of those things. You had owners, crew chiefs, mechanics and guys who had jobs during the week and went on the weekends to help out.”
For nearly 75 years, the team has truly been a family affair. Jon said that Glen Wood instilled principles in his dad, Len Wood and Kim Wood Hall that everyone was an equal, giving the family an equal voice when it came to the race team
While Jon was pushing for more structure within the organization, the decision to move him to team president was a surprise. But that desire for more structure came from observations in the changing landscape of NASCAR’s ownership, as Trackhouse Racing and 23XI Racing have brought on celebrity co-owners while Brad Keselowski has revamped RFK Racing. That push came from finding a balance between Jon’s forte and what his family has done in the past.
“I think I’m a little bit more open-minded,” he said. “I’m more willing to make change, I’m more willing to adjust. They are more traditionalists in that if something is working, there is no reason to…
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