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HEMBREE: Memories Of A Magic Moment
Glen Wood returns to Daytona to relive a special moment in time…
Mike Hembree  |  Posted February 24, 2012   Daytona Beach, FL
From the left: Team co-owner Len Wood, crew chief Donnie Wingo, driver Trevor Bayne, co-owner Eddie Wood, team founder Glen Wood and co-owner Leonard Wood celebrate after the 2011 Daytona 500. (Photo: LAT Photographic)
It’s difficult to pick the best emotions from an exceedingly emotional day, but no one said racing would be easy.

Taking a look back at Trevor Bayne’s stunning victory in last year’s Daytona 500, the list of robust feelings runs long. Upsets in sports always elicit strong responses, and that was particularly the case when a kid barely 20 years old won his sport’s biggest event.

Bayne’s frontstretch celebration with team members was the stuff of magic. None of them fully believed everything that was happening at that moment, but the joy – as one might imagine – was unbridled. Perhaps with the exceptions of the birth of a child, a reunion with a long-lost love or the miracle recovery of a sick relative, it was the kind of jubilation that is difficult to match.

The best sentiment from that Feb. 20, however, came in the minutes after the initial burst of excitement. Wood Brothers team members, after accepting the congratulations of nearby friends and competitors, began moving toward what was, for them, an unlikely victory lane.

And suddenly there appeared the icon of all NASCAR icons – Richard Petty. This is a man who knows his way around victory lane, having been there 200 times on his own (and seven times at the 500). This time he was there not to reclaim that space as his own but to escort Glen Wood, the 85-year-old founder and patriarch of the Wood Brothers team, to the grandest celebration of his long life in auto racing.

To see the two old warriors, long-time combatants but eternal friends, moving toward victory lane together put an extra charge in the emotion of the moment and brought many observers to tears.

Glen Wood was back on the scene in Daytona Friday, reliving one more time the power and glory of that day – and of the simple elegance of Petty’s gesture.

“That got to me,” Wood said. “I think that kind of shows how close we all are. He was our biggest competitor back in the day. That shows how we’ve stayed. We were friends then, and we still are.”

What does it mean to be back at Daytona a year after that captivating moment?

“It means I’m able to, for one thing,” said Wood, now 86, with a grin. “At 86, you don’t know whether or not you can make it the next year. But I’m still feeling pretty good, and as long as I can, I’ll be here. This was one that you felt like you had to make because of what happened last year.

“It was about the greatest race I’ve ever been around.”

Mike Hembree is NASCAR Editor for SPEED.com and has been covering motorsports for 30 years. He is a six-time winner of the National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year Award.
The opinions reflected herein are solely those of the above commentator and are not necessarily those of SPEED.com, FOX, NewsCorp, or SPEED
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