Las Vegas turned out to be a fitting place for the Motorcraft/Quick Lane team to have a little luck at the race track.
With qualifying and practice for the Kobalt Tools 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway rained out on Friday, the starting line-up was set by last year’s owners points, and since the Wood Brothers team wound up 36th in the 2012 standings despite running a limited schedule, Trevor Bayne will line up 36th on Sunday.
If that washout had come at Texas Motor Speedway, the next scheduled event for the team, the Woods’ limited schedule could lead to all the available starting spots going to teams running the full schedule, which includes two races they are not entering.
“I’m glad we’re getting to race on Sunday instead of loading up and going home,” team owner Eddie Wood said. “But even if we fall victim to the weather somewhere down the road, we’ll just add another race to make up for it.”
Despite the lack of practice and qualifying on Friday, Wood and the Motorcraft/Quick Lane team feel they’ll be well prepared for Sunday’s race, thanks to a rare Thursday test session at Las Vegas.
Bayne and his Motocraft/Quick Lane Ford Fusion were 14th fastest in the second practice session on Thursday, and Wood feels that the lessons learned with their back-up Ford Fusion will transfer to the primary car, which is now in race trim and ready to hit the track for race practice on Saturday morning.
“We’re happy with what we had in practice,” Wood said.
Two brief practice sessions are set for Saturday, at noon and 2:35 p.m. eastern time, and
The Kobalt Tools 400 is scheduled to get the green flag just after 2:30 p.m. Eastern with TV coverage on FOX.
