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CUP: Elliott To Make 800th Start
Written by: Tom Jensen   
05/23/2009
Charlotte, NC
 
In this day and age, it’s easy to forget that Bill Elliott and Wood Brothers Racing each were once the most dominant force in NASCAR Sprint Cup Racing.
Bill Elliott stands on the grid during qualifying for the Coca-Cola 600 at Lowe's Motor Speedway. (Photo: Geoff Burke/Getty Images for NASCAR) ยป More Photos

Elliott, who will make his 800th career start in Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600, has 44 career Sprint Cup victories, including 11 in his magical 1985 season, when he won the “Winston Million” $1 million bonus by scoring victories in three of NASCAR’s four biggest races.

Even more impressively, in a 10-season stretch from 1983-92, Elliott won one Sprint Cup championship (1988), was runner-up twice (1985, ’92) and finished fourth or better in points eight different times. Whether driving for his own team with brothers Bill and Dan, or for Harry Melling or Junior Johnson, Elliott was one of the most feared racers of his era, especially at fast tracks.

And the Wood Brothers put up some amazing numbers of their own, winning a total of 96 Sprint Cup races, a number rivaled by only a handful of others. Since the team’s inception in 1950, it has employed some of the sport’s biggest stars, including David Pearson, Cale Yarborough, Donnie Allison and now, of course, Elliott.

In recent seasons, the numbers for both Elliott and the Wood Brothers have been less impressive. Elliott’s last win came in 2003 at Rockingham, N.C., driving for Ray Evernham, while the last time the No. 21 Ford saw victory lane was the spring race at Bristol in 2001, when Elliott Sadler drove it to victory.

With a dearth of sponsorship dollars, the Woods scaled back to a 12-race schedule for 2009, all with Elliott in the saddle of their No. 21 Ford Fusion. But far from being a drawback, the strategy may actually prove beneficial, as witnessed Thursday, when Elliott qualified for the Coca-Cola 600 in 10th place, which was the fastest of any of the eight Fords in the 43-car field.

The Wood Brothers routinely used to run a partial schedule, so the 2009 game plan is nothing new for them. And Elliott said that by focusing on a few select races, most at intermediate-length tracks, the team can optimize its performance, rather than running at the back of the pack in every race.

“Instead of just going and showing up from week to week, we can really concentrate and work hard and define what we’re doing,” said Elliott.

In fact, Elliott said, just getting some seat time in last week’s Sprint Showdown helped he and crew chief David Hyder decide on some changes that should have a positive effect on this week’s race.

“Coming here last week was invaluable for what we learned and what we were able to build,” said Elliott. “I talked to Hyder two
or three times this week and we talked about several different things and he said, ‘I’m gonna change some stuff around,’ and I said, ‘Good.’ I told him that when I made my first laps we didn’t get to qualify in our showdown race, but I didn’t feel like we would have been that good. This week, we were pretty doggone good.”

And so, Elliott will roll off 10th and see what he can do on Sunday night. He’ll be a very long shot, but no longer than, say, Brad Keselowski was when he won at Talladega last month.

“These guys that are on the board and do what they do, they’re hard to beat and that’s just gonna be a part of what this business is all about,” said Elliott. “But we’ve come here and I still feel like we show we can run and be somewhat competitive with the amount of money we’ve got to spend. That’s the only way we can look at it.”

As for making 800 career starts, Elliott is amazed at all he’s seen since his first start way back in 1976.

“There are just a lot of mixed emotions,” said Elliott. “It’s great from my standpoint, but, still, looking at the whole deal it seems like yesterday with all that’s happened. I was talking to Jeff Gordon back in Kansas probably about five or six years ago and I said, ‘You know, I’ve been pretty fortunate to be able to have driven as many cars as I’ve driven throughout my era.’ And to come here and go through the cars of the early years to all the changes they made and to what we’re driving today, it’s been a pretty wild ride.”

Tom Jensen is the Editor in Chief for SPEEDtv.com, the former Executive Editor of NASCAR Scene and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. He is the author of “Cheating: The Bad Things Good NASCAR Nextel Cup Racers Do In Pursuit of SPEED,” and has appeared on television and radio shows to discuss NASCAR racing. Jensen is the past President of the National Motorsports Press Association. Jensen is the 1997 National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year and has won numerous national and state awards for news reporting, columns and feature writing. The Answer Man is back at SPEEDtv.com. Tom Jensen answers your questions during every race week and looks forward to hearing from you - please e-mail it to

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