Wood Finishes 25th in Trying Night at Darlington
Venue: Darlington Raceway
FINISH: 25th
Start: 23rd
Laps Led: 0
No. 91 NCTS Owners’ Points Position: 10th
Darlington Raceway lived up to her numerous nicknames for Jack Wood in his third start at NASCAR’s oldest superspeedway on Friday night. The driver of the No. 91 RTIC Outdoors Chevrolet Silverado RST recorded a 25th-place finish at the track “Too Tough to Tame” after being collected in two incidents past the halfway point on Friday night. The No. 91 team sits 10th in the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series (NCTS) owners’ point standings after nine races.
Wood posted the 20th-fastest time in practice Friday afternoon and qualified 23rd for the tailgaters’ throwback event. Wood’s truck, designed to replicate NASCAR Hall of Famer Tim Flock, fired off tight on the opening run of the evening, yet he managed to inch forward. Wood was scored 21st at the end of Stage 1 on lap 45.
Wood came to the attention of the MHR team and crew chief Kevin Bellicourt during the stage caution to receive four tires, fuel, and air pressure adjustments. He restarted 24th on lap 54, but the team found an opportunity to utilize an off-sequence pit strategy shortly thereafter to gain track position. A caution on lap 66 allowed Bellicourt to call Wood to pit road for fresh tires as most the field stayed on track. After restarting 25th on lap 71, Wood sliced through the pack and advanced to 11th by the end of Stage 2 on lap 90.
A solid four-tire stop by the No. 91 team under the second stage caution netted Wood the 10th position. However, after choosing the outside lane for the lap 98 restart, calamity struck. Wood was swept up in an eight-truck accident off Turn 2 which caused significant damage to the nose of his Chevrolet. The RTIC Outdoors team made sufficient repairs for Wood to continue, but at a reduced pace. Despite the thoroughness of the team, Wood’s night would reach its finality on lap 143 when he was sandwiched in the Turn 1 wall and caused terminal damage. After completing 139 of the 150 laps, Wood was credited with a 25th-place result.
Jack Wood Quote:
“Just a tough way to end our night. We had some good long-run pace in our RTIC Outdoors Chevy and we found our way into the mix in Stage 2. We got loose in the second stage but felt like we had a decent direction with our adjustments and were looking forward to seeing where that run went, but we just got collected in that big mess off Turn 2. Definitely a disappointing ending, but we’ll look forward to North Wilkesboro next week.”