Jon Wood: O'Reilly Auto Parts 250 preview

KANSAS CITY, Kan. -- For only being 21-years-old, Jon Wood has quite a bit of experience at Kansas Speedway. He ran the inaugural NASCAR Craftsman Truck race there in 2001 when he started fifth and finished fourth. He also competed in the Winston West race that year when he won the pole and finished second.

Last year Wood completed all 167 laps in the truck race and finished ninth. This year Wood is hoping his seat time at Kansas will pay off.

"With all of the seat time I have accumulated at Kansas, along with the great equipment I've got this year I think we should have a really good run," Wood said. "We are taking JR-28 to Kansas which is the same truck that we finished in the top five with at Dover and Texas. We switched to a different truck for Memphis and Milwaukee, but that truck fell out of favor with me in Milwaukee."

Wood fought a tight condition throughout the Milwaukee race, but remained competitive near the top five until he encountered alternator problems with 61 laps to go.

"It was a helpless feeling to watch the voltage drop nearly every lap," Wood said. "We were having a decent run, but by the end I was just hoping to finish. We planned to change the battery under caution but we never got the chance since there was only one caution all day. It could have been much worse, so we were lucky to leave with a 10th-place finish."

Wood remains seventh in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series point standings. He gained 57 points on the leaders at Milwaukee and now is only 134 points out of first place.

"Our season is going so much better than last year," Wood said. "Last year I was 11th in the point standings going into Kansas, and this year we've already got four top-five finishes and we didn't have any last year. I won my first career pole at Memphis two weeks ago and had a shot at the win there too. It's a pretty good feeling to know that this team is capable of running up front every week. It's only a matter of time before we get our first win."