Wood Brothers Honoring 1965 Indy 500 Winning Ford-Powered Lotus at Darlington
In May 1965, The Wood Brothers played a pivotal role in securing Jim Clark a victory in the Indianapolis 500, bringing their pit-stop choreography from NASCAR to Indianapolis Motor Speedway for one of the most prestigious events in the world.
Nearly six decades later, Wood Brothers Racing is still going strong in the NASCAR Cup Series and is set to pay tribute to that fateful afternoon in May, where they etched their names into the history books of Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
As part of Throwback Weekend at Darlington Raceway, NASCAR’s annual celebration of its past, The Wood Brothers will be unloading a green-and-yellow paint scheme reminiscent of Jim Clark’s Ford-powered Lotus, that ran – and won – the 1965 Indianapolis 500.
The paint scheme was officially revealed on Thursday at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan.
So, how did this idea come about? Team President Jon Wood says it started a couple of years ago with somebody within the marketing department at Team Penske.
“[They] reached out and said, maybe you guys [should] do a Jim Clark throwback of some sort. At the time we were planning on doing this for The Brickyard, we hoped to do it to run it at The Brickyard, then it never really worked out, so it kind of went on the backburner.”
“With this year being the 75th [anniversary of Wood Brothers Racing], it ended up being the 60th anniversary of that win, so it just seemed to make sense, but we still couldn’t figure out where to do it. Darlington comes along, it’s the first opportunity that we could and there was some conflicting ideas, is an open-wheel themed throwback, does that make sense for Darlington?”
“And really, what Darlington is, is it’s not only a celebration of NASCAR’s past, but motorsports past, and I think we’ve been close-minded to just stick with stock-car throwbacks, so this was a fun one, and I think it celebrates all different disciplines of motorsports, and it branches out more internationally than what we’ve done in the past.”
Josh Berry, who brought The Wood Brothers back to Victory Lane less than seven days ago at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, will be driving this specially designed paint scheme on April 6 at Darlington Raceway, competing in the Goodyear 400. Fresh off of adding his own piece of history to the team’s legacy, Berry is excited to honor a great story from the team’s past.
“Throwback Weekend is always so much fun,” said Josh Berry, driver of the No. 21 Ford Mustang Dark Horse. “To get to honor the history of the sport, of not only NASCAR, but motorsports in general, this is a great way for us to tell the story of the history of motorsports and honor these amazing stories, like this one, that have happened over the course of all these years of racing. It’s a great way to give a little back, and remind people of how we got here and give guys like The Wood Brothers to tell these amazing stories.”
“I’ve been getting them one after another and I was lucky enough Sunday to add a little bit too that, so it’s been a dream to be here and be a part of this opportunity.”
After landing on the Lotus-inspired paint scheme, Wood says the next step for the organization was to get permission to run the paint scheme and use the Lotus name. Wood quipped a joke about not knowing who to reach out to, saying “Who do you call? 1-800-LOTUS?”.
At the advisement of somebody from the Henry Ford Museum, Wood reached out to Clive Chapman, son of Lotus owner Collin Chapman, via email, chasing down permission to use the paint scheme at Darlington, without expecting to get any kind of response. But, he got a response the following day, and the talks took another step forward, into a phone call.
“He speaks very fine, proper English, like England English, and I’m fluent in hillbilly,” Wood said. “So, the gap there, even though we spoke the same language, it was very difficult for me to say, we’re planning a tribute scheme – not a throwback scheme – for a revival race – and not a throwback race – and I’m trying to make words that he understands.”
“The whole time he’s very, very quiet, he’s not really saying much back, and I think he was waiting for me to say, ‘and I’d love for you to pay for it’ or ‘how much this will cost’, like he was waiting for a catch,” Wood added, saying that he left the phone call feeling uncomfortable about the level of understanding.
Wood says he took another shot at it, sending a second email outlining every single detail about what The Wood Brothers were trying to do. The following day, Chapman responded giving full permission to use the Lotus name, saying “I’m behind it all the way, let’s do a diecast.”
The Goodyear 400, with a flock of retro-inspired racecars, will take the green flag on Sunday, April 6 at 3:00 PM ET with coverage of the event on FS1, MRN, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90.
Recommended Links:
feed
Joseph Srigley covers NASCAR for TobyChristie.com, Racing America, and OnSI, and is the owner of the #SrigleyStats brand. With a higher education in the subjects of business, mathematics, and data analytics, Joseph is able to fully understand the inner workings of the sport through multiple points of perspective.