Wood, McGriff Bridge the Gap

FONTANA —  By the time Jon Wood was born, in October 1981, Hershel McGriff had won 20 Winston West races and the 1950 Mexican Road Race.

McGriff, 73, and Wood, 19, will offer a contrast in generations in today’s NASCAR Winston West Pontiac Widetrack Grand Prix 200 at California Speedway.

Wood, a third-generation racer from the legendary Wood Brothers family of Stuart, Va., will start second in a Ford Taurus. McGriff, the oldest active driver in major competition, is back as a full-time racer in Winston West after running a limited schedule for the last five years. He will start 20th in a Chevrolet Monte Carlo.

When Wood was 5, McGriff won the 1986 Winston West championship.

“Didn’t he start the Winston West series?” asked Wood.

Not quite, but the charismatic former Oregon lumberman did compete in its first season, in 1954, when it was known as the Pacific Coast Late Model series.

“I still love doing this,” said McGriff as he crawled out the window of his car. “You know, with the HANS [head and neck support system] and me being a little heavier than I should, the toughest part of the job is getting in and out of the car.”

In four races this season, McGriff’s best finish was a fifth at Tucson.

“I tried running a race or two for the last few years while I worked on my business but I found if you want to accomplish anything, you’ve got to stick with it,” he said. “So this year, I plan to run the whole 14 races.”

McGriff’s last full season was 1993, when he finished ninth in points.

Wood, on the other hand, plans to mix some Winston West races with a couple of Craftsman Truck rides for Jack Roush and perhaps some late model stock car races. In his only previous Winston West start, the teenager qualified fourth at Phoenix and was running with the leaders when a blown tire dropped him to an 11th-place finish.

“This was really fun driving here,” Wood said of California Speedway’s two-mile track. “I’d never been on anything longer than a mile before.”

Wood, whose grandfather Glen Wood formed the family team nearly 50 years ago, began racing at 12 in go-karts.

Like all stock car drivers, he aspires to race at Daytona.

“I’ve already raced in Daytona,” he says with a sly grin. “Not at the speedway. I raced out on the dirt kart track at the rec center. It was around a high school football field.

“But it was Daytona,” he added with a laugh. “And I sat on the pole.”

The $220,691 Winston West race is the early bird on today’s busy schedule, starting at 10:20 a.m.

Mark Reed, a rookie from Bakersfield, will start on the pole in a Pontiac Grand Prix after running a record 181.593 mph during Thursday qualifying.

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Jeremy Mayfield put his footprints and signature in concrete Friday while being inducted into California Speedway’s Walk of Fame. Mayfield joined former Winston Cup winners Jeff Gordon and Mark Martin and CART winner Christian Fittipaldi in the Walk of Fame.