The Wood Brothers are returning to full-time competition next season. The team held a press conference at 1:30 p.m. today to make the official announcement. 2016 will be the first full season for NASCAR’s oldest team since 2008.
Eddie Wood, team co-owner, said that everyone with the team is “beyond excited to make this announcement about going back to full-time competition. It has been something we’ve worked toward since 2009 when we started running limited schedules. I have to thank Ford’s Dave Pericak and Raj Nair, Edsel Ford, our technical alliance partners Team Penske and Roush Yates Engines, as well as everyone at Motorcraft, for working with us to make this day possible. It’ll be fun to see just how good Ryan Blaney, Jeremy Bullins and our team can be over a full season. Lastly, it’ll be great not to have to worry about rain anymore on qualifying day.”
Ryan Blaney will remain the driver of the No. 21 Ford. He has been a development driver with Team Penske since 2012. He has four wins in both the Xfinity and Camping World Truck Series.
“This is every driver’s dream come true,” Blaney said, “getting a chance to run for the NASCAR Sprint Cup. I’m really looking forward to running a full schedule with this historic Wood Brothers team and hopefully get them their 99th and 100th wins sooner rather than later.”
In 15 starts this season for the Wood Brothers, Blaney has one top-five and two top-10 finishes. His best was a fourth-place finish in the GEICO 500 at Talladega Superspeedway in May.
Motorcraft will remain the team’s main primary sponsor. No announcement has been made on who else will sponsor the car next season.
