THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Eddie Wood will be here for Sunday’s Daytona 500. His team’s race car will be back at the shop.
For only the third time in 50 years, and the first time since 1962, the Wood Brothers No. 21 will not be in the field for NASCAR’s biggest race.
"I don’t know what that will feel like," said Wood, co-owner with brother Len Wood of the pioneer stock car team founded by their father and uncle. "I’m sure it’s going to be bad."
Now, the team that helped build NASCAR with drivers such as Curtis Turner, Joe Weatherly, David Pearson, Neil Bonnett, Cale Yarborough and Buddy Baker will miss the 50th running of The Great American Race.
As will current Wood driver Bill Elliott, the 1988 series champion and a two-time Daytona 500 winner, who’s running a partial schedule.
He wasn’t the only disappointed driver after Thursday’s two 150-mile qualifying races determined the 500 lineup.
Two-time Daytona 500 winner Sterling Marlin, former Formula One champion Jacques Villeneuve of Iberville, Que., open-wheeler Patrick Carpentier of Joliette, Que., and NASCAR veteran Ken Schrader all failed to make the race. Schrader’s 18th-place finish in the second race ended his string of 23 consecutive Daytona 500 starts.
Under the arcane qualifying procedure, only two drivers from each of two qualifying races advanced into Sunday’s lineup. The rest of the 43-car field included last year’s top 35 in car owner points, three drivers who made it on speed from last Sunday’s time trials and Kurt Busch, who used the past champion’s provisional.
"The top-35 thing is just a night and day fight, day in and day out," Eddie Wood said. "You can’t let it get the best of you, because it will. It will eat you alive. You have to stand up and continue to do what you’re doing because the worst thing you can do is panic."
He’s not ready to do that, instead focusing on rebuilding the once-formidable team that has struggled to compete recently.
Several teams, including a number of recent open-wheel converts to NASCAR, now must regroup before the next stop in California.
AJ Allmendinger, who made the jump from Champ Cars to NASCAR, beat Elliott but also came up just short.
Villeneuve, who’s still looking for a sponsor for his Bill Davis Racing entry, lost control and crashed early in the second qualifying race — taking Jamie McMurray, Stanton Barrett and Dario Franchitti, the defending Indianapolis 500 winner, with him.
"That’s very annoying," Villeneuve said. "But that’s the way racing goes. I got sideways quite a few times, and, one of those times, it was going to catch me out."
Barrett was eliminated. Carpentier seemed on his way to making the 500 before crashing hard after a tire wore out late in the race.
Carpentier, who banged off the wall several times before finally hitting it hard enough to end his day, said he had hoped to nurse the worn right front tire to the finish.
"But I stayed up as close to the wall as I could because I knew that if it did go, I wouldn’t hit the wall as hard that way," Carpentier said.
There was no softening the blow for Elliott, who finished 16th in the opening race and was never in contention.
Elliott was just too slow, finishing fifth among the drivers trying to race their way into the lineup.
"I don’t think there are words to describe it," said Elliott, who was trying to run in his 27th Daytona 500. "I’m just bummed out."