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Chicagoland: Wood Brothers Racing race report

Chicagoland - 29th Place Finish The Wood Brothers and Bill Elliott headed into Saturday night's race with high hopes. The team's qualifying effort and consistency in practice all weekend confirmed the team was continuing to make progress in its ...

Chicagoland - 29th Place Finish

The Wood Brothers and Bill Elliott headed into Saturday night's race with high hopes. The team's qualifying effort and consistency in practice all weekend confirmed the team was continuing to make progress in its intermediate track program.

The #21 Motorcraft Ford Fusion took the green flag in 8th position and climbed as high as 6th place before making its first pit stop. The car was handling well and Bill requested only minor changes to the car. Unfortunately, during the pit stop the team lost control of a tire and it rolled across pit road -- a NASCAR rules infraction that relegated the #21 car to end of the longest line.

The mishap changed the entire complexion of the race for the 21 team. The team's strategy changed from racing with the lead cars, to trying to keep from being lapped by them.

Taking the green flag at the tail end of the field, Bill drove the #21 car back into the top 20 before the next pit stop.

After multiple long green flag runs, the 21 car was eventually lapped. Unfortunately, the team could not recover from its early race mistake. Bill eventually brought the car home in 29th place.

Commenting on the night's run, Elliott stated, "Man, I tell you what, we had a great car, but you're gonna have nights like that. We just had a bunch of miscues. There's no doubt we're making progress. To run like we ran before the first caution, we're good. We're getting there."

Wood Brothers co-owner Eddie Wood added, "Hyder, Bill, and the guys have worked really hard to get our car competitive, and they've done that. Bill fought back trying to overcome the mistake we made in the pits - we just ran out of laps. The error on pit road is completely unacceptable. We've been fighting problems on pit road all year, and are constantly working with our pit coach Gary Smith to fix them."

-credit: wbr

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