Glen Wood NASCAR Hall of Fame Induction and Press Conference Transcript

MIKE JOY: When you consider that the Glen Wood Company was a single car team and for many seasons ran a partial schedule of most of the Cup races, 98 premier series victories over seven decades, well, those are the numbers. Behind the man that founded an organization that through three generations has done so much to define NASCAR as a family sport.

I think half of Patrick County is here tonight to honor the pride of Stuart, Virginia, Glen Wood.

LEONARD WOOD: Good evening, everyone. I’d just like to — what a night this is. I mean, we’ve got like must be half of Patrick County here. I would just like to say, this is one awesome Hall of Fame. They’ve done such a great job of recognizing all the competitors, and there’s so much to be seen in this place that it’s well worth the tour. I’d like to congratulate all the inductees. All very deserving.

I was highly honored when Glen asked me to induct him into the NASCAR Hall of Fame, and I told him I’d be more than happy to do so. Glen has always been my big brother, and he still is. Glen started racing 61 years ago. Glen and his partner, Chris Williams and I, were riding down the road. Chris says, what we’ve got to do is get some fame, and I’ll have to say, this is as good as it gets.

Glen and I worked really well together. We believed in each other, and we was at Bowman Gray practicing, and when he was on the racetrack his brakes would go to the floor. He’d come in the pits, and he’d say, I know you think I’m lying to you, but when he come in the pits he had full pedal, and I said, no, Glen, I know you’re not lying to me.

So the problem was the exhaust was blowing back on the master ceiling heating the fluid. So we just take the exhaust completely off, he goes out and wins the race. And I’ve got to tell you, nobody was better at Bowman Gray than Mr. Glen.

He had great success at Daytona Beach, he went down there three years in a row, he sat on the pole, won his class. In ’58 he sat on the pole and beat the record with 12 miles an hour, beat all the modified, finished first, and then third overall. And then also in ’59 he sat on pole at the new track in a convertible race.

And of course I know you guys have already figured it out that Glen and I both talk slow. We went to Indianapolis, picked Jim Clark. We just learned recently that when they heard us talk, they were talking to theirself, I sure hope they can pit faster than they’re talking.

Glen has been supporting this sport for a long, long time. They were having races on the beach back in 1947 before NASCAR was formed, and he’s been to Daytona every year since. Not only did Glen win 96 races as a driver, but he provided the opportunity for a lot of young drivers to win their first race. 75 drivers have driven for the Wood Brothers, 20 of which were the NASCAR’s 50 greatest drivers. The Wood Brothers feel extremely honored to have all those drivers driving for us, and I would like to point out there’s a lot of former Wood Brothers drivers here tonight, and it’s certainly a pleasure to see them. I would like to have time to tell a story on one or two of them, but as slow as I talk, we’d be here all night.

Glen was always fair, honest, gave good advice, needed no more than a handshake. Glen was a great race car driver, great businessman, proud of his family Eddie, Len, daughter Kim, his wife Bernice, and Glen was so proud of Eddie, Len and Kim for winning this past Daytona 500.

And speaking of this Daytona 500, Richard Petty, I would like to thank you for walking my brother Glen to the winner’s circle, one of the most celebrated winner’s circles ever. And now on behalf of Eddie, Len, Kim, Bernice, the entire Wood Brothers race team and myself, it is now my honor on this, the 20th day of January, 2012, to present the Hall of Fame inductee ring and thus officially inducting one of NASCAR’s 50 greatest drivers, my big brother, Glen Wood.

GLEN WOOD: This is a long way from the cornfield. Thank you, Leonard. First of all, I’d like to thank the voters that voted for me and thank NASCAR and the France family and the Wood Brothers, all the employees at the Wood Brothers and crew members and drivers. We’ve had so many great drivers, but David and Cale were most successful, so I’m proud to join them in the NASCAR Hall of Fame. And 17 other drivers have won races in Wood Brothers cars, starting with Speedy Thompson, Joe Weatherly, Tiny Lund, Marvin Panch. I think he’s here, Dan Gurney, Curtis Turner, Parnelli Jones, A.J. Foyt, Donnie Allison, Neil Bonnett, Buddy Baker, Kyle Petty, Dale Jarrett, Morgan Shepherd, Michael Waltrip, Elliott Sadler and Trevor Bayne, who won the last Daytona 500. There’s others who have driven our car, too, Jim Massey, Junior Johnson, Fred Lorenzen, Fireball Roberts, Ricky Rudd, Ken Schrader, Bill Elliott, Boris Said, Marcos Ambrose and Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. So you see why I had to read that.

And many thanks to Holman-Moody, who has helped me a lot in the old days and all their employees, especially engine builder Tommy Turner and Howard Dehart, and thanks to Jack Roush for his support over the years.

And we couldn’t have done this without sponsors over the years. Purolator with Paul Cameron and Citgo with Larry Britton, and I think he’s here tonight. And our current sponsors, Ford Motor Company, Motorcraft and Quick Lane.

I would like to acknowledge some of the old guys at Ford in the 1960s, Charlie Gray, Don Worman, Jack Pasinow, Mose Nolan, Don Sutherland and Peter DePaulo. And a special thanks to the current leaders at Ford Motor Company, Alan Mullaly, Mark Fields Jim Farlane, Edsel Ford, Jamie Allison and the rest of the Ford racing staff.

Ford gave me a chance in 1956 when they asked me to be a part of the Ford racing team, which has led to this induction into the NASCAR Hall of Fame, and I’m proud to have been with Ford Motor Company for the last 60 years. We started racing in 1950, and I’d like to thank all my friends and fans from the past 60 some years, and especially from Patrick County.

A special thanks to all my brothers, Ray Lee, Clay and Delano and Leonard and my sister Crystal. I’ve said it before, had it not been for Leonard and Ford Motor Company, I wouldn’t have been here today. And to my family, Bernice, Eddie, Len and Kim, and Carol, Nancy and Terry and to my grandchildren John, Kevin and Jordan.

I would like to thank Quinn Collins for use of the biography the other day for all his hard work, and I’d like to thank the guest speakers who had such good words to say about me. And to all the NASCAR Hall of Fame staff here, too. They’ve been pampering me like I’ve never been before.

Now, this is not just about me being inducted in the Hall of Fame. It’s also about the Wood Brothers. And it’s about NASCAR. And I’m proud to have been a NASCAR driver and car owner for the past 60 years, and I’m proud of this great honor, and this is about two families, the Wood family and the Ford family working together, which has resulted in me being here tonight. Thank you.

An Interview with Glen and Leonard Wood

THE MODERATOR: Glen Wood has joined us, inducted tonight in the NASCAR Hall of Fame. The gentleman that inducted him is next to him, and that’s Leonard Wood. Congratulations on this honor here tonight. Certainly what the Wood Brothers has accomplished over the years is just a milestone and a trademark and a benchmark in the sport. Talk about your thoughts about now being in the NASCAR Hall of Fame.

GLEN WOOD: Well, that means as much to me as anybody else, I can tell you that. It’s the greatest honor you can get in this sport. One of the proud things is that two of the ones that are in already have driven our car, Pearson and Yarborough. I just learned today how big this is. It’s as big as it gets.

THE MODERATOR: Leonard, talk about what it was like being able to officially induct Glen in the Hall of Fame tonight.

LEONARD WOOD: Well, you know, Glen and I worked together all these years, and he was the first driver. We worked really well together. To be able to just induct him into the Hall of Fame, I was just very proud of him, and I was very proud to get to do it. Just a big thrill to me, and of course I would like to add that Junior Johnson has also driven our car, and he’s in the Hall of Fame, as well.

GLEN WOOD: Yeah, I forgot about him.

LEONARD WOOD: Yeah, Junior has always been our friend. He likes to pick at us and we like to pick at him. And I think he thinks the world of us, and we think the world of him.

GLEN WOOD: Well, one thing I didn’t mention when I was up there, the very last race I ran in myself, I promoted the race, with Marvin Panch. Junior was there, and he beat me with my tires. I had to loan him my tire, and I knew he’d beat me if I did, but out of the five in the Hall of Fame today which was Junior Johnson, Ned Jarrett and me in third place and David Pearson and Richard had something happen to him and he was back in the field, but five of them are here in the Hall of Fame now.

Q. I have a question regarding the Indy 500. Your pit stop strategy for open wheel racing, was it much different than NASCAR?

LEONARD WOOD: Well, John Colley from Ford Motor Company asked if we’d come up and pit Jim Clark, so we roll into town. We wondered how these people are going to accept us — we don’t know if they’re going to accept us or not. A foreign crew, and we don’t know how it’s going to go over. But they rolled out the red carpet, they welcomed us to be there. So we started putting the car through inspection, and we had this big giant vent in the side of the fuel tank, so that made the outlet come up off of the floor a little bit, and the inspector says, well, how come you got the outlet so far up on the tank, and I said, well, it’s up there, and he says, I’ll bet you $1,000 you can’t pour 20 gallons a minute into that tank. We didn’t bet with him, but we run a trial run that put 58 gallons in in 15 seconds.

And the car, you know, it was such a force of filling it up that when you’re against the car, you can just feel the car swell up, you’re putting so much pressure in there.

But it was one of those times you got the most publicity in the least amount of time than anything we ever done in our life.

Q. Leonard, when you guys started racing, did you assume that Glen would be the driver sort of forever and ever? Was it kind of a surprise when Glen decided he didn’t want to drive?

LEONARD WOOD: No, you know, he started out as like fun, you know, and then he begin winning races and setting track records, and so he was very good. I’m telling you, smooth on the throttle, and on the short tracks, he loves the short tracks, but when it got to the superspeedways he just didn’t like to do that as much. Then in later on years — he loved the beach. He run the beach course. But then we started getting drivers because he decided he didn’t like to run at high speeds.

GLEN WOOD: It was a whole lot of trouble to try to do the driving and be a part of working on the car, too. Of course I was probably the best truck driver they had, so that would have been part of my job, too.

Q. Today we’ve seen marriages last 72 days and you guys have been in the sport forever and have been with Ford. What’s the secret to keeping everything together for so long?

LEONARD WOOD: Well, Glen and I have always worked really well together. Glen is really good at keeping people happy, his employees and all that, and of course I was concentrating on making the car run. He is the businessman. He’s a way better businessman than I ever thought about being. I was just concentrating on making the race car run and he concentrated more on the business.

We both just worked together. And then of course you don’t never need to — if you have bad luck, you don’t never say, poor me or whatever, you just know that goes along with it and try not to let it get the best of you and just go forward as much as you can.

GLEN WOOD: I think if I ever had one bad expression of it, I think I did throw my helmet down one time, but I never did anything like some of them do today.

Q. They talked during the induction ceremony that 20 of the greatest 50 NASCAR drivers of all time drove your cars at some point in their career. How did you go about getting them into your cars? Was it something Ford engineered or did you call them or did they call you?

LEONARD WOOD: Well, if you get your car fast enough, you’ll get your drivers. That’s the biggest thing.

GLEN WOOD: Ford did ask us sometimes if it would be okay to do that or put us together. We got together with some pretty good ones. But David Pearson, I just called him myself and asked him did he want to drive it. Well, yeah. So that worked out the best of anybody we ever had in the car.

Q. Can you one more time, Glen, tell the story about how your name went from Glen with two Ns to one N, and to follow that up, how long do you think it’ll be before Leonard gets in the Hall of Fame, as well?

GLEN WOOD: Well, I really don’t know how come the last N got dropped off. I guess it had to be signing autographs. You know how they do today. You don’t know who — if you didn’t put a number on it, you will not know who did it the next day or the next five minutes if you had several there, because it’s a scribble of sorts.

I always write my name, try to write it so they can read it, because it may not have a number by it. Who was that?

And what was the other part?

Q. Give me your best reason why he should be in the Hall of Fame.

GLEN WOOD: He’s the best, that’s why. No, he knows more about — I think Dale Inman would agree with this, that Leonard knows more, everything about a car than anybody that’s ever been in NASCAR. That’s why.

THE MODERATOR: Glen, Leonard, thanks for being here tonight. Glen, congratulations on being inducted into the Hall of Fame, and we’ll see you this season. Thank you very much.