A loose-handling race car and long green-flag runs are a frustrating combination for a NASCAR race team. But Bill Elliott and the crew of the No. 21 FordParts.com Ford Fusion hung tough, overcame both of them and made up a deficit that grew to three laps at one point to finish 23rd in Sunday’s Emory Healthcare 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

Elliott started the race in 40th place after a disappointing qualifying run, and the team had planned to use early race pit stops to fine-tune the chassis.

But the race opened with 133 straight laps of green-flag racing. Elliott moved up six positions initially, but by the time he had completed his first green-flag pit stop he was a lap down but still within two cars of getting the Lucky Dog free pass.

The green flag continued to fly, and the breaks didn’t fall the Woods’ way initially as Elliott continued to struggle with a loose-handling condition.

On Lap 239, race leader and eventual winner Tony Stewart put Elliott three laps down, but from there the Wood Brothers crew reached into their bag of pit-strategy tricks and began regaining the lost ground.

With 27 laps to go, Elliott rejoined the lead lap. The move up from the rear of the pack caught the attention of the ESPN crew covering the race, and they pointed out to their viewers the surge of the blue-and-white FordParts.com Fusion.

Elliott held on over the closing laps to finish 17 positions better than he started.

It was his third straight top-25 finish.

We’re still struggling some,” Elliott said. “We’re not that bad; we just need to be better.

The car just didn’t roll through the center of the corner well enough to run like we want to.”
Elliott had a few close calls during the race but managed to steer clear each time.

His closest brush with disaster came when Scott Speed blew an engine in front of him on Lap 265.

“I was in that melee a little bit,” he said.

Elliott and the Wood Brothers team return to the circuit on Oct. 3 for the Price Chopper 400 at Kansas Speedway.

It seems only fitting that as Atlanta Motor Speedway celebrates its 50th anniversary, the race team with the most wins at the Georgia track is celebrating a special anniversary of its own. The Wood Brothers, who lead all teams with 12 Atlanta victories, come to Atlanta for the Emory Healthcare 500 with the hometown favorite, Dawsonville native Bill Elliott, driving the blue-and-white No. 21 FordParts.com Ford Fusion.

It’ll be the second time this season that the Woods’ Ford has carried the FordParts.com colors on the same weekend that Tasca Racing, which competes in the NHRA, also switches from its familiar red-and-white colors to the blue and white of FordParts.com

“We’re excited about the paint scheme,” said Eddie Wood, co-owner of the No. 21 Ford. “It looks really nice, and when we ran it in Michigan earlier this year it was well received.”

FordParts.com is a relatively new offering from Ford that offers a chance for repair shops, body shops, fleets, and do-it-yourselfers to order Genuine Ford and Motorcraft parts online.

Once a part is ordered, consumers can pick up the parts at a dealership or have them delivered to their home or shop.

The service offers a VIN-search capability up for more than 280,000 parts, and it also has available more than 22,000 detailed technical diagrams of parts and assemblies.

For Elliott, the thought of driving the FordParts.com car at his home track brings back memories of his five victories and five poles in 61 career starts on the home turf. It’s also a place that he remembers from his pre-driving days, of traveling there in the mid-1970s, parking in the infield and cheering David Pearson on to victory in the Wood Brothers Mercury.

Back in those days, Elliott and his family were well known in the north Georgia area for their unwavering support of Ford Motor Company and of NASCAR and its race tracks.

Elliott’s fondness for the 50-year-old AMS continues to this day.

“It’s great to get to race this close to home,” he said. “It’s been a lot of fun racing there over the years, and I still enjoy racing there and still want to run good there.”

Elliott, like most veteran drivers preferred the old true-oval configuration at Atlanta, one that was changed to a quad-oval in the early 1990s. But he’s a little more encouraged than usual this week because of the success he and the  No. 21 team had in their last AMS outing.

He qualified a disappointing 34th  back in March, but his David Hyder-led crew made several changes to the car in the early laps and despite a pit-road penalty, Elliott drove his way toward the front, leading the race at one point and finishing 16th after weaving his way through some late-race multi-car crashes.

They also had a fuel-mileage strategy in play that could have put them in contention to win had the late-race caution flags fallen their way.

“I was really happy with the way we ran in the spring,” Elliott said. “We started way back, but everybody put in a great effort and we wound up running good.”

This weekend’s race will be the first at AMS for Elliott at night on Labor Day weekend. Last year he had to turn over the No. 21 Ford Fusion to David Gilliland after he injured himself riding his motorcycle the week before the race.

Elliott vows that won’t happen again.

“I’m staying off my motorcycle this week,” he said.

The Emory Healthcare 500 is set to begin Sunday night at 7:30, with TV coverage on ESPN.

Ray Cook is a supporter of the Bill Elliott Driver Development Program.

Bill Elliott and the crew of the No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Fusion battled back from being a lap down to score a 22nd-place finish in Sunday’s Carfax 400 at Michigan International Speedway, topping off a day that saw the team honored for its legacy of success in NASCAR and at the Michigan track.

Elliott started 30th and maintained a spot on the lead lap until he fell a lap in arrears due to two long stretches of green-flag racing. But when the caution flag flew for an incident between Joey Logano and Ryan Newman with 51 laps to go, the Woods opted to take the wave-around and rejoined the lead lap.

But for the wave-around to be of much help, a team needs the caution flag to fly again fairly soon so they can get fresh tires and fuel since teams that opt for the wave-around can’t make a pit stop during that caution period.

Jeff Gordon’s flat tire and the resulting caution flag provided the No. 21 team that opportunity just six laps later, and the Motorcraft/Quick Lane crew was able to service their car and send Elliott out with fresh tires and a full tank of fuel for the final run to the checkered flag.

Elliott restarted 25th and drove to 22nd at the checkered flag.

“It was a good day,” team co-owner Eddie Wood said. “At the end of the race, we were running good lap times, but we just couldn’t get the track position we needed to capitalize.”

Wood said the over-the-wall pit crew had a good day, and Elliott did a good job getting on and off pit road as quickly as possible and without incurring a speeding penalty.

“Bill’s one of the best at getting on and off pit road,” Wood said.

Race day at Michigan started with a ceremony on pit road in which the Wood Brothers were honored with a permanent plaque commemorating the team’s 60 years in NASCAR.

The plaque, on the wall behind Victory Circle, recognizes both the Woods’ contributions to NASCAR and their history at Michigan International Speedway.

The Woods are tied with fellow Ford team owner Jack Roush for the most wins at MIS (11) with three drivers, Cale Yarborough, David Pearson and Dale Jarrett.

Yarborough won the first NASCAR race at Michigan back in 1969 driving for the Woods, and Dale Jarrett got his first Cup win, also with the Woods, at Michigan in 1991.

“It’s a real honor,” Eddie Wood said. “The only other plaques there are commemorating NASCAR on its 50th year and Richard Petty for his 1,000th start.”
 And the fact that the honor came at Michigan made it even more special.

“It’s the home track for Ford Motor Company, and it’s like home for us too,” Wood said.

Elliott and the Woods return to action at another home track of sorts, Atlanta Motor Speedway, on Sept. 5-6. AMS is the home track for Elliott, and it’s also a place where the Woods have scored 12 Cup victories, more than any other team in the track’s 50-year history.

Bill Elliott and the crew of the No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Fusion got an opportunity to take a few chances in qualifying for Sunday’s Carfax 400 at Michigan International Speedway.

Their chassis tweaks didn’t work out just like they’d planned, but they’re still solidly in the show for Sunday, which is the most important thing on pole day for a team running a partial schedule and therefore not eligible for a guaranteed starting position each week.

This time around, the Wood Brothers team did have some breathing room because Elliott was the only past Sprint Cup champion in the field, thus ensuring him a starting spot. So the team decided to loosen the chassis in an attempt to grab a spot near the top of the starting grid.

But the sun popped out hot just as Elliott took his turn against the clock and the car would be too loose, resulting in a lap at 184.431 miles per hour, which puts him 30th on the starting grid.

But spirits were high in the Motorcraft/Quick Lane pits because the team was focused on making its car faster, not just getting it into the show.

“We had good speed,” team co-owner Eddie Wood said. “We were good in Turns One and Two, but we were just too tight in Turns Three and Four in practice.

“Since Bill was locked into the field, we loosened up the car, but it wound up being a little too loose.”

Wood pointed out that while the perception is that a loose race car is fast, that’s not exactly the case. Having a car that rolls freely through the corners is best, he said.

“When a car is too loose, the only way a driver can adjust for that is to back off the gas,” he said. “But if it’s too tight, they can still stay in the throttle. It’s a very hard task to get the balance just right.”

The Motorcraft/Quick Lane crew is encouraged by the performance of the No. 21 on Friday, knowing that when the change is made from a two-lap qualifying set-up to one designed for a 400-mile run the car should be closer to a balance that will allow Elliott to drive toward the front of the field.

“When we open up the grille for race trim, so the air flows through the radiator, it should balance it out, and we’ll be just fine,” Wood said.

The Carfax 400 is set to get the green flag on Sunday just after 1 p.m. with TV coverage on ESPN.

Tradition is a big part of the culture and heritage of the Wood Brothers Motorcraft/Quick Lane race team, the family-owned outfit that has been a bedrock of NASCAR for the past 60 years.

The No. 21 team, throughout its existence, has been known for having hard-working, enterprising and dedicated people preparing their race cars. For many years, Leonard Wood, the brother of team founder Glen Wood, was the one leading the car-preparation effort. Today, that role is filled by David Hyder, who in many ways is like a modern-day Leonard Wood, only with some short-track driving experience on his resume.

Just as Leonard Wood once was known for working day and night to gain his team a mechanical advantage, Hyder is similarly driven to make his race cars the best they can be. Both are known for their careful attention to even the smallest details.

Even though Hyder and the Wood Brothers crew are running a limited Sprint Cup schedule, he and his crew put in a full-time effort.

On a recent night, while other Cup teams were traveling to Watkins Glen, Hyder was working late, spending time on the seven-post test rig, trying to wring a few more miles per hour from the Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Fusion that Bill Elliott will drive this weekend in the Michigan 400 at Michigan International Speedway.

It’s the car that the team debuted at Indianapolis Motor Speedway a couple of weeks ago, one that showed great promise in the Brickyard 400 as Elliott was among the fastest in practice and drove from 31st to 18th in the race.

Hyder said he’s been working to find a good balance on the car’s handling and likes what he’s seen so far.

“It’s a good car,” he said. “We changed some things around for Indy, and it reacted as we expected to the adjustments we made during the race,” Hyder said.

The track at Michigan will pose different challenges than Indianapolis, but Hyder is preparing to conquer them. He said the sweeping turns require a chassis set-up that will allow Elliott to have plenty of rear grip when he takes off down the long, fast straightaways. And those straights will give Elliott a chance to put his FR9 Ford engine, a winner two weeks ago at Pocono with Roush Fenway Racing’s Greg Biffle at the wheel, to good use.

Hyder also is aware that many Michigan races over the years have boiled down to fuel mileage, and he’s got that aspect covered too. Team co-owner Len Wood generally figures fuel mileage and plans strategies as his father Glen Wood once did, and Hyder is plenty confident in his abilities.

“I’ll put Len up there against anybody on pit road as far as fuel mileage calculations,” Hyder said.

Even though Hyder sees lots of improvement in his race team this season, like Leonard Wood in an earlier era, he’s not content to sit on his accomplishments to date.

“We’re trying to get better and better, and we’ve got to keep moving forward,” he said. “We’ve got our work cut out for us, but we’ve got a lot of good people working for us, and we’ll have better results before the end of the year.”

He’d like nothing better than to kick things off with a strong run at Michigan, in the backyard of the headquarters of Ford Motor Company.

“Working for the Wood Brothers, we all bleed Ford blue,” he said.

Qualifying for the Michigan is set for 3:40 p.m. on Friday, and the race gets the green flag on Sunday just after 1 p.m. with TV coverage on ESPN.

A 31st-place starting position for the 17th running of the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway didn’t bode well for Bill Elliott and the Wood Brothers’ No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Fusion. But Elliott and his David Hyder-led crew showed their true racing colors and turned in an impressive performance in one of NASCAR premier events, a race that is second in stature only to the Daytona 500.

When the checkered flag fell, Elliott and the No. 21 had moved up 13 positions to an 18th-place finish, the team’s second top-20 finish in seven starts so far in the 2010 season. The other was a 16th-place run at Texas Motor Speedway.

On Sunday at Indianapolis, the Wood Brothers team took advantage of some skillful driving by Elliott, a former Brickyard 400 winner, along with some smooth pit stops and good pit calls by Hyder to run among the top 20 for most of the afternoon and come away with a solid finish that they hope will lead to even better results when the Motorcraft/Quick Lane team returns to action in three weeks for the Carfax 400 at Michigan International Speedway.

Elliott’s driving skills were key to making it past the first lap at the Brickyard. When Kyle Busch and Sam Hornish Jr. spun just in front of him triggering a multi-car crash, Elliott steered the Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Fusion through the smoke and spinning cars, emerging without a scratch on his car.

“That was close, real close,” Elliott said.

He also managed to avoid several other incidents and stayed on the lead lap throughout the race, even as some of the top contenders fell a lap or more behind.

In the closing laps, Elliott was involved in some of the closest racing of the day, and in doing so got himself and his team some quality TV time from the ESPN broadcast crew, which pointed out to viewers what a strong run the Wood Brothers team had going.

In the end, many of the drivers who had fallen a lap or more down took advantage of the wave- around rule to rejoin the lead lap. But Elliott held his ground in the final run to the checkered flag and delivered the team a momentum-building finishing position.
 “It was a good day all around,” said team co-owner Eddie Wood. “The car was good. The FR9 engine was strong. Everything seemed to come together.

“We had good calls on the pit stops. Hyder and Bill [Elliott] worked together to make the car better, and Bill drove a really good race.”

Wood said he believes the progress the team made with a brand-new car at Indianapolis is a sign that the struggles of mid-season are behind them.

“A run like we had today is something to build on,” he said.

Check out Wood Brothers Racing’s new website at woodbrothersracing.com

Bill Elliott and the Wood Brothers’ No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane crew came away with a victory of sorts during Saturday’s qualifying session for the 17th running of the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. They were best in class among the “go-or-go-home” teams that are not among the top 35 in car owner points and therefore not assured of starting spots for races. Elliott’s qualifying lap at 178.845 miles per hour was only good enough for the 31st starting position. It does not take into account that he and the rest of the non-guaranteed drivers made their runs late in the session on Saturday when the track was getting hotter and slicker – and therefore slower – by the minute as the summertime Indiana heat baked the racing surface. “We ran faster than we did in practice,” Elliott said. “You can’t do anything about the [qualifying] draw. I know some guys run faster in that deal, but what we try to fight and what they try to fight is a whole different war at the end of the day.” Team co-owner Eddie Wood pointed out that with his team running a partial schedule and not guaranteed a starting spot, the most important thing in qualifying is to make sure the Motorcraft/Quick Lane colors are on the track come race day. Earlier in the weekend at Indy, the familiar red No. 21 Fusion was among the elite on the speed charts. Elliott was fifth fastest in the first practice session at 174.686 mph, then ninth in the second practice, with a speed of 178.437 mph. To get back to the lead pack when the green flag flies on Sunday afternoon, Elliott and the Motorcraft/Quick Lane crew will have to rely on pit strategy and other tactics to overcome their starting position. Luckily for them, the Wood Brothers team has historically been one of the best in NASCAR at pit and fuel strategy. It’ll be especially important at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, where the racing layout, while historic and beloved, isn’t the most conducive to side-by-side racing. “You can’t pass here,” Elliott said. “It’s probably the world’s worst race track to pass, and you just have to do whatever you’ve got to do to get there. “At least you’ve got the whole race to work on it.” The Brickyard 400 is set to begin at 1 p.m. on Sunday with coverage on ESPN.