Another Wood Looking Relatively Good

The future of NASCAR may have been on display ahead of time in two races Saturday at California Speedway.

Hank Parker Jr., 26, was a surprise winner in the Busch Grand National Auto Club 300, and Brendan Gaughan, 27, won the Winston West Pontiac Grand Prix 200, but most impressive was the second-place finish by a 19-year-old third-generation driver from one of stock car racing’s most revered families.

Jon Wood, son of Eddie and grandson of Glen, one of NASCAR’s earliest champions, lost the lead to Gaughan with four laps remaining, but not before leading for 54 of the 100 laps and dominating the race against Winston West veterans.

It was the first time Wood had raced on a track longer than one mile and his inexperience showed.

“This being my first superspeedway it was definitely a learning experience,” said Wood, who was in his second Winston West race after finishing 11th at Phoenix. “I’d never felt what it was like to run in a pack of cars and feel what the air did, but I know a little bit about it now.”

Gaughan, son of a Las Vegas casino owner, drafted past Wood when the leaders were running in traffic.

“The kid did a great job,” said Gaughan, who won for the third time. “I had more experience, but I still caught some good luck.”

Said Wood: “When I would get behind those lapped cars I would get that aero push and it just heated up my front tires more than I needed to where it was just pushing, really, really bad. That’s when he got under me. The lapped cars seemed to move over and let him go, but that comes from running the series and me not running it.”

Gaughan won $20,625 in running a record pace. His speed of 152.269 mph shattered the record of 136.621 set by Ken Schrader in 1998.

Austin Cameron of El Cajon finished third and moved into the series lead by 16 points over pole-sitter Mark Reed, who finished 12th.

Parker’s win, his first in 72 Busch starts, was the result of pit strategy and fuel mileage.

Rookie Greg Biffle appeared to be on his way to a second series win when he led 90 of the 150 laps. But he dropped back with a lengthy pit stop 20 laps from the finish. Crew chief Randy Goss elected to put on four tires while refueling and Biffle dropped from first to sixth.

Jeff Green, the series champion, took up the challenge but after ducking into the pits for a 6.2-second splash of fuel, Parker and Jeff Purvis motored away. Neither pitted again and both finished ahead of Green.

“I don’t know how those guys ran that far on gas,” Green said. “They don’t have the same fuel cell I’ve got. I think we had the fastest car, but the fastest car doesn’t always win. Any time you can win one by strategy the way Hank did, it makes it sweeter.”

Parker, who has been struggling to make his mark in NASCAR, is a former go-kart racer from Denver, N.C., who moved up to stock cars in 1993. His best previous finish in a Busch race was a third at South Boston, Va., in 1999. This year in nine races he had not finished better than 16th.

“Before the race ever started, I was saying how we were way back in the points and I said if he have the chance for a gutsy move, let’s go for broke,” Parker said. “It worked for me today.

“With four laps to go, I was getting pretty emotional. I was saying, ‘you are going to run out of gas, so calm down.’ When I came into turn 3 on the last lap, I started screaming. I could have coasted in at that point.”

Biffle agreed with Parker’s analysis.

“It came down to fuel mileage and we couldn’t gamble the way he did because we were on top of the points and couldn’t take a chance on running out of fuel and not finishing. More power to Hank and crew for doing what they did. Under the circumstances, it worked.”

Biffle, who finished sixth, also lost the points lead to Kevin Harvick, who finished fifth. Harvick has 1,446, Biffle 1,444 and Green 1,405. Biffle did extend his rookie lead, 148-96, over Scott Wimmer.