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It's An Emotional Ride

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By TONY FABRIZIO | The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 17, 2008

DAYTONA BEACH - To reflect and reminisce as the 50th Daytona 500 approached, Eddie Wood of the famed Wood Brothers Racing drove down to the old Ponce De Leon Inlet Lighthouse south of Daytona Beach on Tuesday.

He trudged up the spiral staircase and looked out on what was once the south turn of the Beach Road Course where drivers raced before Daytona International Speedway opened in 1959.

Wood's father, Glen, who founded the Wood Brothers with his brother Leonard, had raced in the second-to-last beach race in 1957 and the inaugural Daytona 500, and Eddie Wood wanted to put his hands around that history.

"As I was leaving," he said, "I went through the little gift shop and they had some DVDs of old '50s and '60s racing, and I had to buy it. I left there, and the lighthouse is kind of inland a little bit, a couple of blocks. So I was sitting there in the street and I knew that they turned left there and went across and came back up the other side, but I didn't know which street it was.

"So I called my dad and said, 'Which street was it that was Turn 1?' And he said, 'It was Beach Street.' I looked up, and that's where I was.

"I left there, and I'm getting ready to pull out, and I look over and there's Richard Petty. He was there, too. That's what the Daytona 500 is."

Wood told that story after his driver, Bill Elliott, failed to qualify the No. 21 Ford for today's race, leaving the Wood Brothers out of the Daytona 500 for the first time since 1962. The Woods' 45-year run included victories in 1963 with Tiny Lund, 1968 with Cale Yarborough, 1972 with A.J. Foyt and 1976 with David Pearson.

Saturday morning, at a table outside his motor coach in the speedway infield, Wood tried to put into words how hard it is not to be part of the 50th edition of the race that has been so important to his family.

"It just kind of makes you sick," he said sadly. "But then you're like, 'OK, just stop.' You've got to put this one behind you and move forward."

The Daytona 500 evokes emotion like no other NASCAR race, and with the added significance of the 50th running, the emotions have been magnified.

At the other end of the spectrum from Wood is Kenny Wallace, who didn't have a ride until a few weeks ago and didn't expect to make the 500 when his former team, Furniture Row Racing, offered him a one-race deal. Wallace, one of three brothers - along with Rusty and Mike - to compete at Daytona, raced his way into the 500 with an eighth-place finish in one of Thursday's qualifying races.

"This is the 50th Daytona 500, the biggest sporting event in the United States right now, and I raced my way into it," Wallace said Thursday, awash in the joy of his accomplishment. "Besides my wife and children, this is the No. 1 thing. It's unbelievable."

The Daytona 500 is not only NASCAR's most important race of the year, but also it's the only race of the year in which there is no talk about points standings or championship implications.

Buildup starts the first week of January with preseason testing and ramps up when teams arrive more than a week before the race for the Bud Shootout, pole qualifying and the qualifying races.

This year's race has had a different feel, though, because of the emphasis on 49 years of memories. Time and again, drivers and other participants would get choked up as they gave their takes on the highs and lows of the Daytona 500.

Darrell Waltrip, who will work the booth for today's Fox Sports telecast, launched into a narrative this week about his most poignant memories.

"I think about '84, I'm going down the back straightaway on the last lap with Cale Yarborough eating my bumper up, and I know I'm a sitting duck," he said. "But I'm pretty smart. I remembered 1979 the infamous fight between Yarborough and the Allison brothers, and I said, 'Maybe I better not crowd him off the track.' So I didn't and I finished third."

Waltrip had claimed all three of his championships and 74 of his 84 career victories when he finally won the Daytona 500 on his 17th try in 1989. But he skipped over his own victory to reflect on the deaths at Daytona of two friends - Neil Bonnett, while practicing for the 1994 Daytona 500; and Dale Earnhardt Sr., in the 2001 race.

"I could go to bed right now, thinking about my two good friends, Neil Bonnett, my former teammate, and Dale Earnhardt, and I could cry like a rat eating an onion," he said. "I'm telling you. ... And I know it affects all of us that way."

Among today's 43 starters are six former winners (Jeff Gordon, Dale Jarrett, Michael Waltrip, Jimmie Johnson, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and defending champion Kevin Harvick); the last two Indianapolis 500 winners (Dario Franchitti and Sam Hornish Jr.); and two all-time greats who have yet to win (Tony Stewart and Mark Martin, who came within less than three feet last year).

The 24 living Daytona 500 winners, including Mario Andretti and A.J. Foyt, will be on hand as grand marshals. Petty, a seven-time winner, will drop the green flag as honorary starter.

Jarrett, who'll make what is supposed to be his final 500 start today, blinked over red eyes Wednesday when he thought back on beating Earnhardt Sr. for the first of his three victories in 1993, as his father, two-time NASCAR Grand National champion Ned Jarrett, exhorted him home on the CBS telecast.

"As I crossed the start-finish line, it was almost like, 'Did this really just happen?'" Jarrett said. "And then, obviously, later on, seeing and hearing the broadcast of the race and CBS letting my dad go and be a father and not necessarily an announcer was pretty special.

"It still is today."

Reporter Tony Fabrizio can be reached at (813) 259-7994 or afabrizio@tampatrib.com.

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