Wood leads Daytona truck test
By Dave Rodman, Turner Sports Interactive
January 19, 2002
6:45 PM EST (2345 GMT)
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Precocious youngster Jon Wood apparently is taking a couple veterans’ wiles to heart, and it paid off with the fastest speed Saturday in the second day of an open NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series test at Daytona International Speedway.
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Jon Wood
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Wood, 20, who tested within the last week with Roush Racing Winston Cup teammate Mark Martin at nearby USA International Speedway in Lakeland, Fla., posted the best lap of the test’s two days, 48.704 seconds, an average speed of 184.790 mph in his No. 50 Ford.
NASCAR Busch Series veteran Tim Fedewa, who is testing Roush’s second F-150, is helping Wood’s operation.
Former two-time NCTS champion Ron Hornaday was again second-best with a lap of 184.676 mph in the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet.
Rounding out the top-five speeds were Travis Kvapil in the No. 60 Addington Racing Chevrolet, 184.532 mph; Joe Ruttman in the No. 79 Smith Racing Dodge, 184.253; and Bobby Dotter in the No. 08 Green Light Racing Chevrolet, 183.948.
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Joe Ruttman tested in the No. 79 Dodge.
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Ruttman, 57, who was dialed out of a ride at Bobby Hamilton Racing when Dodge chose to go with younger drivers, got his first laps of the session Saturday in a familiar Ram owned by Smith, a North Carolina Late Model Stock Car driver who has made a limited number of truck starts.
Ruttman, who finished third in the 2001 championship with two race wins and four Bud Poles, is unsure of what he will do this season, but the defending Daytona pole winner showed he remembered how to get around the 2.5-mile trioval.
Rick Crawford in a Ford (183.857), Friday’s fast man Matt Crafton in a Chevrolet (183.839), David Starr in a Chevrolet (183.790), Terry Cook in a Ford (183.505) and Robert Pressley in a Dodge (183.423) rounded out the top-10.
A relatively unprecedented seven-day stretch without an on-track mishap through six days of Winston Cup testing and Friday’s truck session ended Saturday morning. Mike Hamby, who was testing Derrike Cope’s No. 37 Quest Motorsports Ford in hopes of being approved for Daytona crashed the truck on the backstretch. He was uninjured.
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