The Wood Brothers Racing Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Fusion will not race in Sunday’s Coke Zero 400 because qualifying was cancelled at Daytona International Speedway due to threatening weather around the area.
When weather cancels qualifying, NASCAR sets the field according to the number of attempts teams make during the season. So far, the No. 21 has attempted and run in only six races in 2015.
“I really hate this for Motorcraft/Quick Lane and all of our guests,” said Eddie Wood, co-owner of Wood Brothers Racing. “We’ve been lucky. This is the first time this has happened since we started part time in 2009. We’ve dodged a lot of bullets, including last month in Michigan.
“This one got us,” Wood continued. “Even though it didn’t rain, it’s going to and lightning is a problem. Safety first.
“We’ll go ahead and get home a day early and get ready for Kentucky,” he said. “We control what we can control and we can’t control the weather.”
Driver Ryan Blaney echoed Wood’s comments. “Some stuff we can’t control and this is one of them,” he said. “This is the bad part about running part time. If this happens you’re out.
“It’s unfortunate we didn’t get a chance to qualify,” Blaney said. “We had a really fast Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Fusion.”
Blaney’s machine was ninth fastest at 193.415 mph running alone in the second practice session on Friday.
“I was really looking forward to qualifying and getting into the race,” he said. “Our next race is Kentucky next week and I’m looking forward to that one.”
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