Wood Bros. last standing when the music stops (cont'd)

Ultimately, Ford wanted the Woods to focus more on being better on the race track, and less on searching for sponsorship. Ideally, the reduced schedule will allow the Woods and crew chief David Hyder to turn out better cars, record better finishes, and perhaps secure sponsorship for more races down the line. But the performance has to come first.

“

We don't have to wait for somebody to answer a question for us. If something needs to be changed, if something looks wrong, smells wrong, we're going to fix it. And not next week, we'll fix it right now. We don't have to ask somebody.

”

-- LEN WOOD

"As they were looking for sponsors, things were getting tight. A lot of guys were really tightening up the purse strings," said Brian Wolfe, Ford's director for North American motorsports. "We talked about it quite a bit and were really pleased with the technical progress they were making late in the year with the new crew chief they had brought on board. They were really embracing the analytical tools that we had. We said, 'Len and Eddie, we don't need you to run the full season. It won't hurt us. You're putting so much effort and emphasis on chasing the sponsors, let's forget about that. Let's just focus on 12 races next year, and if those sponsors come on board it will be easy to add and it will also set a better foundation for 2010.'"

The Woods say such a move hearkens back to their past, when the No. 21 car won most of its races while running a part-time schedule and as few as five full-time employees working in the shop. Yet that was a different era. With few exceptions -- most notably Mark Martin, who recorded several solid finishes running limited schedules for Ginn Racing and Dale Earnhardt Inc. -- part-time teams haven't fared very well in today's NASCAR. The Woods believe they can be different.

"We felt like rather than doing something halfway, let's try to do 12, do what we can do, and do them right. And then each week when we show up, try to be on top of our game," Len said. "It's not a breather, but it gives us a chance to regroup, and do things more efficiently. I need a jack man who can be a mechanic, I need a fabricator who can change tires, things like that. Instead of having two people do one job, I want one guy that does two jobs right now. Things like that, get our stuff back together, and hopefully get our performance up to where we can get the sponsors easily and hopefully be back full time for the next year."

The Woods did see slight improvement near the end of last season, capped by a 12th-place finish at Homestead. That has them hopeful for 2009. "We spent more time on these two Daytona cars than we've spent in years," Len said. "If we don't make a good showing, it will fool me."

Were the Woods ever close to closing their doors for good? The brothers say no. The Woods are a proud family with a proud legacy on the race track, something they'd like to keep intact. So come Daytona they'll be at it like they've always been, with even the co-owners getting their hands dirty and carrying parts through the garage area, trying to keep the family business going a little longer.

"We're not standing here looking for a bailout," Len said. "We've talked to [NASCAR chairman] Brian France, we've talked to [International Speedway Corp. president] Lesa [France Kennedy], we've talked to [NASCAR president] Mike Helton. We've explained our situation. Now, we don't want them mad at us for running a part-time schedule. But we also don't want to do more than we know what we can do."

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.