When Harrison Burton first joined the Wood Brothers ahead of the 2022 season, one word was on his mind: legacy. “It’s definitely a cool opportunity and a big responsibility to carry on that legacy, and do it the right way. That’s not lost on me,” he said before the season began.“I’ve always put that same pressure on myself to perform and do well.”
If you’re not steeped in NASCAR history, Burton’s talk about feeling pressure to perform while driving the No. 21 car would have sounded a bit strange. Wood Brothers Racing appears to be just another single-car team that somehow nabs a rare win every decade or so. But, like Williams in Formula 1, it’s a team that’s left tire marks all over the sport’s history books.
Wood Brothers Racing is the oldest existing team in NASCAR — they ran their first Cup race in 1953, with Glen Wood driving a Lincoln that had a No. 21 painted across the door. He founded the team alongside brothers Leonard, Delano, and Ray Lee, and together they built one of the sport’s most enduring presences.
Wood Brothers
While iconic organizations such as Petty Enterprises, Yates Racing, and Junior Johnson & Associates have fallen by the wayside, Wood Brothers remains. Even as fellow Ford team Stewart-Haas Racing — once a powerhouse in NASCAR — prepares to close up shop at the end of the 2024 Cup season, the Wood Brothers show so signs of slowing down.
The first of many
In 1960, Glen himself delivered the team its first Cup win, leading every lap from pole position at Bowman Gray Stadium. Over time, the wins started flooding in, and the red-and-white No. 21 became nearly as well-known as the Petty blue No. 43 on the track. NASCAR Hall of Famer David Pearson racked up 43 of the team’s 100 race wins, including 11 in a single season in 1973. Wood Brothers Racing took its first Daytona 500 checkered flag in 1968, with Tiny Lund behind the wheel; the team won its fifth (and most recent) Daytona 500 in 2011 with then-rookie Trevor Bayne.
Life in NASCAR’s Cup series is hard for a one-car team. It took Harrison Burton’s chaotic last-lap mad dash for Woods Brothers to reach 100, with Ryan Blaney having notched the team’s 99th victory back in 2017, at Pocono. Wood Brothers Racing hasn’t enjoyed a multi-win season since 1981, and has only earned three Cup victories in the 21st century.
Trevor Bayne of Wood Brothers Racing celebrating his 2011 Daytona 500 win
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