Strong Run, Short Day For Bayne At Talladega
Trevor Bayne and the No 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Fusion were flexing some Ford muscle in the early laps of Sunday’s Aaron’s 499 at Talladega Superspeedway.
Bayne started 15th after the line-up was set based on practice speeds, and after just seven laps, Bayne had the Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Fusion running in the top 10. He was in sixth place a lap later, and after dropping deep in the pack moved back into the top five by Lap 13.
As he entered Turn One on Lap 22, smoke billowed from the rear of his car, and he coasted onto pit road the victim of a rare engine failure.
“There was no warning at all,” Bayne said. “I got to Turn One, and it let go.”
Despite the disappointment – and the 43rd-place finish – Bayne was able to find some positives in an otherwise down day.
“We were lucky to hold onto it and keep this car in one piece because it’s going to be fast at Daytona in July,” he said. “I hate this for our team…It’s OK though because we’ve got good race cars.”
Team co-owner Eddie Wood, like his driver, tried to balance his disappointment over an early Talladega exit with the potential for a strong run at Daytona.
“We had a fast car, and we were doing the things we should have been doing early in the race,” Wood said. “We don’t know exactly what went wrong with the engine, but I do know it’s disappointing that we weren’t able to deliver a better result for Motorcraft and Quick Lane.”
He said he too is looking forward to getting the team’s best superspeedway car back on track at Daytona International Speedway in July.
“We thought we had a shot at the pole at Talladega and didn’t get to go for it because of rain,” he said. “So we’ll just take this car to Daytona and try to sit on the pole and win the race.”
But before they return to restrictor-plate racing, Bayne and the Motorcraft/Quick Lane crew will make their next Sprint Cup Series appearance on May 23-26 for the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
Even With Rain, Bayne Gets A Starting Spot At Talladega
Trevor Bayne and the No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Fusion will be in the starting field for the Aaron’s 499 at Talladega Superspeedway, but that prized spot had more to do with good fortune than it did with the speed of the car.
Normally, when Sprint Cup qualifying is rained out the field is set according to the rule book, which means the top 36 teams in the car owner points standings get starting spots, with the remaining 7 spots going to car owners based on owner points and race attempts.
With 44 cars entered and just 43 spots available, one part-time team would miss the show.
Because team owner Glen Wood has more attempts this season, his No. 21 Ford Fusion will race while the No. 81, owned by Joe Gibbs and driven by Elliott Sadler, will miss the race because that car has made just one attempt to qualify this year, but had the No. 19 of Mike Bliss not withdrawn from the race earlier this week, he’d been racing and the Motorcraft/Quick Lane crew would be absent from the starting field.
“We’re really fortunate to be able to race,” team co-owner Eddie Wood said, adding that since the Wood Brothers’ team only runs a limited schedule, every qualifying session brings more drama than one might expect.
Once it was determined which cars made the race, the starting line-up was based on speeds in the first practice session on Friday, and Bayne’s best lap of 198.372 miles per hour earned him the 15th starting spot.
Like nearly every other driver and team in that practice session, Bayne and his Donnie Wingo-led crew knew that qualifying likely would be rained out, so they were going for maximum speed.
“Almost everybody was out there trying to run in the pack or catch the pack to get a fast lap,” Wood said. “Trevor was running with Carl Edwards, who wound up on the pole, and they had a really fast lap going but the No. 42 (Juan Pablo Montoya) pulled down, and Trevor had to check up at the last moment.”
Given the circumstances, Wood wasn’t too disappointed, and as a bonus, spending time drafting that otherwise might have been spent getting ready for a qualifying run should allow Bayne and the crew to be better prepared for actual racing conditions.
“I think we’re in good shape for the race,” he said.
The Aaron’s 499 is set to get the green flag just after 1 p.m. Eastern Time on Sunday with TV coverage on FOX.
Talladega’s Annual Opener Has Been Good For The Wood Brothers
Talladega Superspeedway, site of this weekend’s Aaron’s 499 has long been one of the favorite Sprint Cup stops for the Wood Brothers and the Motorcraft/Quick Lane crew.
That’s especially true for the track’s first race of the year – the Winston 500 in the early years and the Aaron’s 499 today.
From the day Donnie Allison got the first of the Woods five Talladega wins in the 1971 Winston 500 to Trevor Bayne’s eighth-place finish in the 499 last May, the Wood Brothers team seems to regularly find their way to the front of the giant Talladega pack in the track’s first race each year.
David Pearson, who took the Woods to Victory Lane all over America, could work his magic at Talladega too.
From 1972-1974, he swept the spring races at Talladega. His win 40 years ago especially stands out for the events that took place that afternoon.
Just a week after Pearson drove a Wood Brothers Mercury designed for superspeedway competition to a surprise home-track victory for the Woods at Martinsville Speedway, he qualified the No. 21 Mercury on the outside pole at Talladega. Buddy Baker, who later would drive for the Woods, was the top qualifier.
Behind the lead duo were 58 other drivers, comprising the largest starting field ever for a modern-day Sprint Cup race. (Other Talladega races in that era had 50 drivers in the starting field.)
Baker took the lead on the initial start, and Pearson, the sly Silver Fox, was content to ride in second-place in the early going.
On Lap 10, Ramo Stott’s Mercury blew an engine, triggering a major crash on the backstretch.
Eddie Wood, one of the co-owners of the No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Fusion, was working in the pit area that day back in 1973.
“We didn’t have radios, and there was no TV, so you really didn’t know what was happening on the backstretch,” he said. “As the cars went down the backstretch, it got quiet.”
Wood and his fellow crewmembers could only look toward Turn Four and hope their No. 21 Mercury eventually would appear.
“I remember seeing Pearson come into sight, him and the 09 car,” Wood said. “They came back around, and then some of the others wrecked the second time around, there was such a mess on the backstretch.”
All told, 21 drivers were involved in the crash with 19 cars too damaged to continue.
Pearson pitted during the caution period brought about by the crash, turning the lead over to the No. 09 Ford driven by Charles Barrett of Cleveland, Ga. Barrett led from Lap 24-36. It was the first time that his car owner, the late George Elliott, ever saw one of his cars lead a Cup race.
Barrett’s career was cut short by a highway crash, and two years later Elliott, one of the most loyal supporters ever of the Blue Oval brand, put his youngest son behind the wheel.
Bill Elliott went on to deliver 40 Cup victories for Ford along with the 1988 championship, and in addition, he wound up driving the No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Fusion from 2007-2010.
Barrett’s lead was short-lived, as he ran over debris from the crash and cut a tire. His ensuing pit stop gave the lead to J.D. McDuffie. But the independents and journeyman drivers who avoided the crash and shared time in the spotlight soon found themselves chasing Pearson.
The Silver Fox dominated the remainder of the race, leading 111 of 188 laps and was a lap ahead of runner-up Donnie Allison at the finish. For Eddie Wood, the memories from decades ago are made more special by the fact that 40 years later his team’s Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Fusion is still considered a legitimate contender for the win at Talladega.
In its most recent run at Talladega last fall, Bayne, the 2011 Daytona 500 winner, took the No. 21 Fusion to the lead for five laps, made up a lost lap and was running fourth with four laps to go before his fuel-pressure gauge began fluctuating, sending him to pit road and an eventual 21st-place finish.
This time around, crew chief Donnie Wingo and the Motorcraft/Quick Lane crew have prepared a new 2013 Ford Fusion, and Wood said it has all the signs of being another front-runner.
“It blew some good numbers in the wind tunnel, and we tested it two weeks ago at Daytona,” Wood said. “We’re really happy with it.”
Qualifying for the Aaron’s 499 is set for Saturday, May 4, at 12:10 p.m. Eastern Time with the race getting the green flag just after 1 p.m. on Sunday with TV coverage on FOX.
Bayne Rebounds To Finish 18th In NRA 500 At Texas
Trevor Bayne and the Motorcraft/Quick Lane crew had a good night going at Texas Motor Speedway on Saturday when an untimely caution flag put them nearly two laps down just after Bayne made his final pit stop in the NRA 500. Even so, Bayne and his Wood Brothers team used the wave-around rule to rejoin the lead lap and score an 18th-place finish.
Bayne started the race in 22nd position and immediately began to work his way forward. Halfway through the race, he was running in the top 15 and looking for more.
As the crew was preparing to make its final scheduled stop, Bayne noticed a fluctuation in the fuel pressure on his No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Fusion so he came to pit road. The pit stop was flawless, but the caution flag flew before the rest of the leaders stopped, knocking Bayne and the Wood Brothers off the lead lap.
Crew chief Donnie Wingo elected to take the wave-around on the race’s final caution period and rejoin the lead lap, but doing so meant that Bayne would have to make the final green-flag run without the benefit of fresh tires or a chassis adjustment. Still he was able to bring the car home in 18th place.
“We had a good night, and it could have easily been much better,” team co-owner Eddie Wood said. “We were running with Carl Edwards and Greg Biffle when the caution caught us. They finished third and fourth, and we would have been right there with them.”
Wood said he was pleased with every aspect of his team’s performance.
“Trevor did a good job,” he said. “Donnie called a great race. The pit crew had a good night.
“Everybody did what they were supposed to do. That one caution flag, which couldn’t be helped, was our only problem.”
Bayne and the Motorcraft/Quick Lane crew return to the Sprint Cup Series on May 3-5 for the Aaron’s 499 at Talladega Superspeedway.
Bayne Picks Up Pace From Practice, Qualifies 22nd At Texas
An early qualifying draw didn’t turn out as well for Trevor Bayne and the Motorcraft/Quick Lane crew as it did for some of the other teams at Texas Motor Speedway on Friday.
Drivers qualifying later in the session had the advantage of a cooler – and faster – track, but Bayne, who was the sixth driver to make his run against the clock, still will start 22nd in Saturday night’s NRA 500.
“We went out so early, but that was way faster than anything we did in practice,” Bayne said. “It’s kind of at our disadvantage to go out that early, but I think we’ll be OK.”
Bayne’s qualifying speed of 192.754 miles per hour greatly exceeded his best lap in practice, at 188.278 mph, and that improvement was in spite of a less-than-perfect qualifying run.
“We were a little free right there in [Turns] Three and Four to be able to get back to the gas and a little bit tight in One and Two,” he said.
Team co-owner Eddie Wood said the qualifying effort didn’t tell the whole story from Friday. He was more interested in the speed the No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Fusion showed in the first practice session, when Bayne and the Wood Brothers crew focused on dialing in their chassis set-up for the race.
“Our times stayed good on the long runs,” he said. “I think we’ll be OK.”
The NRA 500 is set to get the green flag just after 7:30 p.m. Eastern Time on Saturday with TV coverage on FOX.
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