Wood Brothers have full-time funding, await charter

Wood Brothers Racing and Paul Menard have just about everything in place to go racing in 2018.

Filling out the team's sponsorship schedule will be Motorcraft and Quick Lane, who announced Tuesday the continuation of its partnership with the Wood Brothers. The brand will serve as a primary sponsor for 14 races next season.

Brett Wheatley, executive director, Ford Customer Service North America, cited the Wood Brothers family as the reason the company decided to continue with the team.

"The long partnership we've had with them, they've been great for our business and they're just great to be associated with both from a Ford perspective as well as our brands," Wheatley said.

"We've had a lot of success with them. This has been an exciting year already being in the playoffs, so we definitely didn't want to walk away based on the longstanding relationship we have. Plus, the momentum that we have. We didn't really give it a second thought."

Menard was announced as the next driver of the No. 21 Ford last month as Ryan Blaney transitions fully into the Team Penske group. It has also previously been announced that Menard would bring with him sponsorship from Menards – his father John's company – for 22 races.

The 2018 season will mark the third consecutive year Wood Brothers Racing has run a full schedule. The organization spent 2007-15 competing on a limited basis.

"It means a lot," co-owner Eddie Wood said of being able to again run a full season. "After you race part-time like we did those years, just being able to get back full-time is a big deal. It brings back everything that it's supposed to because when you're at home watching [the races] it's just not the same. You feel like you're supposed to be somewhere else.

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"You sit there and watch them all day and then when it's over you have this empty feeling because you're not heading to get on a plane to get home, you're already there. It's just a good feeling knowing you're going to race them all."

The only piece of business the team has left to take of is a charter. This season, Wood Brothers Racing has been leasing a charter from Go Fas Racing. A charter guarantees a team a spot in the field for each point-paying race. However, a charter can only be leased for one year at a time and the charter the Woods have will return to Go Fas at year's end.

Eddie Wood said the organization continues to work on acquiring another charter for next year. It's all in motion right now, he said.

But even with that still to be addressed, having Menard signed to a multiyear deal and sponsorship taken care of, there has been an understandable sigh of relief from the Wood Brothers when it comes to having stability going forward.

"Having Paul and knowing you've got some time ahead of you with the same people, the same driver, it makes a big difference because in the back of our mind we knew Ryan was going to leave at some point, we just didn't know when," Eddie Wood said.

"We were fortunate enough to keep him probably another year or so than was originally planned, so it all worked out for us. Now he's going to be in the third Penske car, that's kind of the way it was supposed to unfold and it did. It's good for everybody. Everybody wins."