Busch Series rookie Jon Wood has one top-five finish and three top-10s in 21 races. Credit: Autostock

10 Questions: Jon Wood

LOUDON, N.H. -- Jon Wood is truly riding the wave in NASCAR racing, competing in the Busch Series for ST Motorsports as a "loaned driver" from Roush Racing, as the namesake of one of the sport's "first families": Wood Brothers Racing.

Wood goes to Gateway International Raceway for Saturday night's Wallace Family Tribute 250 in 19th in the Busch standings, 73 points out of the top 15.

The former Craftsman Truck Series Rookie of the Year from took a break from preparing his No. 47 Clorox/Wisk Ford at New Hampshire International Speedway to answer 10 questions not necessarily related to his racing career.

1. What's your dream vehicle that you don't already own?

Jon Wood: That's a tough one. I always wanted a limo. And now I've got a limo. Even though it's an old, old one; it's a lot of fun.

I think that new Ford GT is a sweet ride, but they're pretty pricey.

	JON WOOD •   Driver Page •   2005 Statistics

Q: Of course, you could win a Nextel Cup championship and get yourself further up the priority list. Have you had a chance to drive one of those, because you're in good company with the rest of the Ford drivers -- like Dale Jarrett and Matt Kenseth -- who want one of those cars?

Jon Wood: The only problem with the pecking order is, if D.J. (Jarrett) wants one, I think I'm a little farther down the list than he is (laughing).

No, I haven't had a chance to drive one. I saw Kenseth in his -- but they're pretty smooth and I like them, a lot.

Q: What kind of limo you got?

Jon Wood: It's an '89 Lincoln Town Car. It is a Ford. It's a Lincoln, I guess, so that counts. I was wandering through the streets of Mooresville (North Carolina) about two years ago and I saw this thing on the side of the road for $3,000.

So I went in and haggled the guy down and bought it for 2,500. It had a working sunroof, TV, divider window and all that stuff -- so it kind of beat getting a taxi or something if we were going downtown one Friday night.

It's a wintertime vehicle. The air conditioning doesn't work, so it gets pretty hot in the summertime and we only ride it during the winter.

Q: You always need side jobs. You consider hiring yourself out as a driver for any parties or anything?

Jon Wood: I looked into that, but the insurance was pretty pricey, with my (driving) record (laughing).

2. If time on the road weren't an issue, what would be your ideal pet?

Jon Wood: A monkey. I want a monkey really bad. I've contemplated getting one anyway, but I've kind of got a houseful, with two dogs now.

A monkey would be a lot of fun, but I think they're a lot of maintenance. I can't afford to hire someone right now, in addition to the motor coach driver that I have, to take care of this thing.

So I'm going to put that on the back burner for a while.

Q: Have you swapped any monkey notes with Tony Stewart?

Jon Wood: No, but I know that he has one, and Ricky Hendrick had one at one time. But I just think that it would be really cool to have one.

I don't know that I'd be any good at changing diapers. I dread that enough with a baby, much less something that you've got to do it forever, with.

3. What's your biggest pet peeve while driving on the road?

Jon Wood: Well, I don't really have one particular pet peeve. I know that it gets aggravating driving through big towns that once were small towns -- like Mooresville, for example.

It seems like there's eight billion people in a town suited for 500. You know, it's all you can do to keep from running into somebody and I have a Ford courtesy vehicle so if I did that, it wouldn't go over very well, so that would just back up my chances of getting my Ford GT.

4. You've had a long career, from karts to Craftsman Trucks and now the Busch Series and you travel a lot, so what's your worst hotel experience?

Jon Wood: My worst hotel experience was this one time in Amelia, Va., which is kind of near Richmond.

Brian Vickers and myself raced karts at the same time; so every week we had our own hotel room, just the two of us. One week my dad would pay for it and the next week his dad would pay for it.

And my dad was always at the Cup races. So this one Friday night, and we were only 13 so we didn't know any better -- and our hotel room came equipped with a microwave.

So we thought it would be cool to find stuff in the room and put it in the microwave. So we put the soap in there, and a shoe -- a pillow. It seemed like the TV remote control was the next thing in line.

So we put that TV remote in the microwave and put it up to about 10 minutes and about two minutes into the deal it was just a puddle of plastic. So we went running outside and poured it in the parking lot.

We didn't get to throw it -- we had to pour it because it was solid liquid. And I think the hotel owner saw us. So he came into the room and said that we could no longer stay there that night.

It was late and we had to race the next day, so I called my dad and said, "What do you want me to do? Where do I stay?" And he said, "Well, it's up to you."

So I had to sleep in the back of the pickup truck that we drove to the track in. It was not a good idea. I was never allowed to stay at that hotel in Amelia, again.

Q: You know, I swear that both of the Sadler brothers -- Elliott and Hermie -- had their worst hotel experience racing karts in Amelia, as well. It was a little bit difference experience, though -- the hotel was bad, they weren't bad in it.

Jon Wood: Well, here's the deal. It was probably the same motel (laughing); because Amelia's not that big and there's not that many hotels -- I think there's one.

So if I ever lose my Busch ride and trickle back down into the karting world, I'm going to have a hard time finding a hotel in Amelia.

5. What's your favorite food?

Jon Wood: I don't know. I don't like to eat. I think eating's a waste of time. It takes a lot to get me to sit down and do anything -- I don't know how I drive a racecar, but it seems like fast food is the No. 1 option because you can drive up and get it and leave.

I'm not very good at cooking stuff, because I don't have the attention span.

6. If you had to choose, would it be being honest, or being nice?

Jon Wood: Neither of the two sounds very appealing. I like to lie and I like to be mean.

Probably being nice, because it's tough being in this racing world and being a totally honest person. But then again, it's kind of tough to not be nice, so I think there's a good balance between the two.

But if I were to pick, I'd say that I'd like to lie rather than be nice. And that wouldn't be lying, that would be telling the truth -- that's me being nice telling you that (laughing).

7. What's your fondest childhood memory?

Jon Wood: What's childhood? Where does that stop? What age?

Q: For some of us, it hasn't stopped yet. Seriously.

Jon Wood Credit: Autostock

Jon Wood: Well, I'd say my most memorable experience with my entire family was when I won the Craftsman Truck race at Martinsville (in 2003). I know that sounds lame, and that most people would come up with something cool and creative.

But winning in Martinsville, which is 15 minutes from my hometown -- and my dad being able to be there, and my grandfather and my uncle -- the entire family was there.

And it had been 40 some odd years since that racing team -- a Wood brother, whatever -- had won at Martinsville (actually 30 years since David Pearson won in 1973 in a Wood Brothers Mercury).

I did it in one of the premier NASCAR series and I think it was a warm feeling for my grandfather to see that times have evolved and everything, but his tradition still lives on and the family can still be successful.

8. What would your dream date be? Where and with whom?

Jon Wood: Ummm. Let me think of a funny way of putting this. Hold on. Where, and with whom? All right. Does it have to be a future date -- or can it be one from the past, because I've got a pretty funny story.

This is the scenario. I drove in the Craftsman Truck Series in 2003. And the end of the season, it was thrown around and everyone at Ford wanted me to be in a Busch car.

So they worked a deal where I went and drove for ppc Racing at Homestead. I drove a third Busch car for (team owner) Greg Pollex, and I was supposed to go there and help Scott Riggs clinch the championship, because he was in the championship hunt.

So to throw another wrench into the equation, Greg had a daughter, Sherry, and that in itself was enough to make me lose my focus, right there -- because being young and all, that was a tough time back then.

So I go to the track and I made sure my fire suit was all ironed out and looking pretty, because I was going to meet this girl and I didn't even care about the race.

So I meet her on pit road, and this was Greg's daughter and she didn't really know a lot about racing at the time but enough to know what I was doing. So we met and I thought I made a good impression and I was going to get her phone number after the race.

I made the mistake of not getting it before the race. So we go out and run the race and I wreck Scott Riggs coming to end the first lap. I wrecked him, my teammate -- the guy who was gonna win the championship (laughing).

So his hopes flew up in smoke, and my hopes of going out on a date with her go up in smoke and I'm the outcast of that entire family.

I would kind of cringe and try to go under the dash when I went by their race shop, which was in the (Mooresville) business park for about a year after that.

So finally I gathered up the nerve and hoped that she had forgotten about it and I saw her in the grocery store one day, and push comes to shove and to make a long story short, we've been dating now for six months.

And it's funny because when I go to what you would call family reunions -- or just when their family is all together -- I don't dare bring up the Homestead experience.

Q: This was supposed to be a dream date -- not a nightmarish experience.

Jon Wood: It was nightmare. It was a nightmare and then a dream come true. It was a bad deal; because it was something I had really looked forward to and then to have it all (blow up).

I mean everything -- the girl's side, the racecar side -- I can't really see what was worse, me wrecking Riggs or wrecking my hopes and chances with her.

9. Your dad's name has come up a couple times I this next category, but racing and pranks go together pretty well, so what's your worst prank, either perpetrated by you, or done to you?

Jon Wood: It's funny you ask that because they vary from someone pulling a spark plug wire off of your rental car to there are hundreds and hundreds that people do.

But the worst one that I ever did -- and I'm going against the NASCAR community by giving up this phrase -- but they made me go out and look for this thing called a "metric long wrench."

I was probably 12 years old, and I still don't know what a wrench is, much less back then -- you know, I had no clue.

So they said, "Go find us a metric long wrench, and do this and that and blah-blah-blah." So I go from one hauler to the next hauler to the next hauler and everybody sends me in a circle.

And before I know it I'm back where I started at the 21 hauler, still looking for this metric long weight -- it's the long weight, is what it was. I probably looked all day, and there's no such thing as that kind of tool.

That's something that they do to new crewmembers and things of that nature, and it's now a once-a-month occurrence, where somebody comes up and says, "Have you seen that metric long weight laying around?"

Yeah, right. I've seen one. It's over on the 21 hauler.

10. What would you consider your "Welcome to NASCAR" moment?

Jon Wood: I ran a Winston West race in Fontana, Calif. It was my second NASCAR-sanctioned race above Late Models, and it was in a Winston West car.

And you're almost to the top. When you get there, you're one step away from racing in Truck, Busch or Cup.

So I raced and led the majority of the race and ended up finishing second. I was real frustrated after the race and I was walking back to my hauler and my dad was standing beside Bill France Jr.

They were just standing there talking and Bill said, "Come here, boy."

So I walked over to him, and said, "Yes?"

And he said, "You keep driving like that, and one day you'll be racing in my town."

And I didn't really understand it at first, and I walked away saying, "I wonder what he meant by that?"

And then it dawned on me, his town being Daytona. So I thought, "Well you know, when Bill France says something to you like that, you're getting pretty close because Daytona, obviously, is very prestigious."