Glen Wood, founder of the Wood Brothers Racing team, is part of this year’s induction class for the NASCAR Hall of Fame. Wood was at Charlotte Motor Speedway earlier today and talked about seeing the team’s 1963 paint scheme on the famed No. 21 Ford, and how that number came to be such a fixture for the team. Also, is it Glenn or Glen Wood? He explains below:
GLEN WOOD, 2012 NASCAR Hall of Fame Inductee – WHAT’S IT LIKE TO SEE THE RETRO PAINT SCHEME FROM 1963? “Something like this rarely happens and I think Len and Eddie and all the guys at the shop came up with a good idea to do this. The color scheme on this car is the same one Tiny Lund won the 500 at Daytona with and a little bit later in the season I won the last race I ran in that same car, so it’s a good time for it to happen with the Hall of Fame and everything that goes with it. Seeing my name on the top of the door and my picture on the hood is heartwarming to me.”
WHAT’S IT LIKE TO SEE YOUR PICTURE ON THE HOOD OF YOUR CAR? “It’s kind of unbelievable, but knowing my kids I wasn’t surprised.”
OVER THE DOOR GLENN WOOD HAS TWO ‘N’s’ WHILE THE HALL OF FAME DECAL HAS GLEN WITH ONLY ONE ‘N’. CAN YOU TELL THE STORY AS TO WHY WE SOMETIMES SEE TWO AND SOMETIMES ONLY ONE? “There’s not a story, I don’t think. Somewhere along the line it possibly happened from signing autographs. I somehow might not have spelled it all because it was shorter and easier to do, so that is possibly the reason why it is that way, but my birth certificate is two ‘n’s’.”
WHEN YOU WRITE A CHECK IS IT ONE N OR TWO? “It’s still just one. I forgot how to do the two n’s.”
WHAT’S THE FEELING LIKE AS THE HALL OF FAME INDUCTION GETS NEARER? “It’s just amazing to me the people who congratulate me on that and it’s people that I don’t even know. Somehow they know me and it’s just very gratifying to have been chosen this early in the balloting. I guess I just didn’t expect it so soon, but like Willie Nelson said, ‘If you think I’m gonna stand up here and take this over all those other deserving people out there, you’re darn right I am.’ (Laughing) I thought that was pretty neat.”
HOW DID THE NUMBER 21 COME ABOUT ON THE CAR? “We’ve had different numbers. We started out with the number 50 and we had a little accident with that and it caught fire and burned up. We decided to change the number after we fixed it back up and we put a 16 on it. But along the way somewhere we just put a 21 on it and a little later we put a 22 on it. We ran a 22 for a long time and then during the time they ran convertibles and Grand Nationals together, Fireball Roberts had a 22. That was his Cup number and mine was a 22 in the convertible. Sometimes he would run a convertible race and guess who had to change his number? It wasn’t him (laughing). So we kept doing that a time or two and we decided we would just leave a 21 on it. It’s been a good number ever since. Other than one year with 7 Eleven, you can understand they wanted a seven, but after that Citgo came along and we went back to the 21 and it’s been there ever since. I hope it stays.”
