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The folks at Wood Brothers Racing are busy getting ready for this month's Daytona 500, the season-opening race for NASCAR's Sprint Cup Series.
That is not unusual. The legendary team has prepared for the series' biggest, most well known race ever since there was a Daytona 500. This year is No. 58 for the event billed as the "Great American Race."
Actually, the family-owned organization's Daytona history runs a bit deeper -- team founder and patriarch Glen Wood competed on the beach and road course before the 2.5-mile superspeedway rose up a few miles inland.
What's unusual is what will follow. Because after Daytona will be Atlanta. And Las Vegas. And Phoenix and Auto Club. Martinsville and Texas and Bristol. And on and on and on.
The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series schedule whips across the country, and this year, for the first time since 2008, the Wood Brothers and their familiar red-and-white No. 21 Ford will be there every step of the way.
"I'm looking forward to going back to some of the tracks we haven't been to for a while like Atlanta, Martinsville -- I really love road courses and things like that, places that present an opportunity that's a little different, even like a Pocono," Len Wood, who along with brother Eddie oversee the operation of the team today. "Anything can happen at a Pocono or a road course, so that's what I'm looking for."
The team has 98 victories, but only one since cutting back to a limited schedule. Granted, it was a big one -- the 2011 Daytona 500 with driver Trevor Bayne.
Last year, Ryan Blaney made 16 starts for team, finishing with top 10s at Talladega in the spring (fourth) and Kansas in the fall (seventh). He scored a pair of XFINITY Series wins (Iowa-2, Kentucky-2) while driving for Team Penske and a Camping World Truck Series victory (at Bristol) for owner/driver Brad Keselowski.
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His Sprint Cup schedule may have been limited, but the knowledge gained was not.
"It's good to get experience, it's good to work with the whole team on these Cup cars and be able to race around the competition," Blaney, 22, said. "Just racing around your other competitors is one of the biggest battles -- knowing how they race and just learning from them.
"That's something I've been able to do in the Truck Series and the XFINITY Series. But the Cup side is way different. The cars are way different, they handle way different, there are different things you can do.
"It was definitely a learning year, a good year to get us prepared for this full-time season."
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Blaney, along with Chase Elliott (Hendrick Motorsports), Chris Buescher (Front Row Motorsports), Brian Scott (Richard Petty Motorsports) and Jeffrey Earnhardt (Go FAS Racing) make up this year's Sunoco Rookie of the Year class. All have multiple Sprint Cup Series starts, from Earnhardt's two to Blaney's 18.
The Wood Brothers team will continue its technical alliance with Team Penske, likewise a Ford organization and one that fields Sprint Cup teams for Keselowski, the 2012 series champion, and teammate Joey Logano.
Crew chief Jeremy Bullins is a former Penske crew chief, having helped lead all three drivers to Victory Lane in the XFINITY Series. Bullins also has ties to the Wood Brothers -- he began his career working with the group when the team shop was still based in tiny Stuart, Virginia.
"For me personally, it's a big deal to be on this car, for this car to be successful," Bullins said.
How successful the team can be as it transitions back to full-time status, Bullins said, "is up to us."
"When you look at Ryan and his ability, the equipment that we have and the resources we have, really it's up to us and how far we take it," he said. "Obviously the goal, the reason we are here, is to try to win races and try to win championships eventually.
"When you start your first year in the Cup series, you don't anticipate that but it's up to us how far we take it. The potential is there, for sure."