Wood Brothers Racing Museum Full Tour: Legendary NASCAR Family History With Eddie and Len Wood!

this is basically as raced it's a 429 Hemi and it runs that's Leonard that's the same lathe and the same bench this came from Dan gurny in 1969 that thing turned sideways now I'm looking out the side glass knowing we're going to crash we're at the Wood Brothers Museum in Stuart Virginia where they have the most comprehensive collection of artifacts and stories of any race team Museum we have ever filmed to date that's see it yeah this is it this is all we use so it's basically like you're talking to us and I just hold this here and easy where did the Wood Brothers start and where do you guys fall into that our dad drove and Leonard was the mechanic deleno and Ray Lee helped they come on Sundays and helped at night they us they used to work at night a lot CU they all had other jobs our dad was a sawmiller Leonard worked at a Ford dealership Ray Lee he was into heavy equipment like bulldozers and things and deleno worked did a saw mail so you see the all the buildings over there where did that shop on stilts come from was it already in the family or did was it purchased to use for racing uh daddy rented it so the I'll call it the first place was the home place they had like a shed for two cars under a beach tree and the beach tree is where they would throw a chain over a limb to pull the engine out is that the actual tree limb crane mechanism okay when Daddy cleaned out the old shop he put stuff on carts Uncle deleno comes in here one day he'd been back there rumbling around he rolls his cart up here and he says you know what this is don't you now it's kind of a smart alic yeah it's an engine horse it's not just an engine horse it's the engine horse Okay changed my attitude right quick and I said I should get Daddy to go up in the woods and cut a tree limb down make it look like it's growing out of the wall he had a guy cut that out of the beach tree so that's a Lim out of the beach tree the same tree the tree wow it's it's not the limb cuz the limb is that big around now but that's a hoist and Edie and John uh got the number off name off of it and I think that company went out of business in 1928 so the horse had have been used when they got it in in 50 Area first shop when they outgrew the home place was this one uh which daddy rented in 1950 late 50s like 53 or 4 and in 56 daddy built this shop so this building that we're standing in right now was the race shop after 96 like ' 96 and 03 we we moved in here fall of 95 our dad basically this was his playroom um he it was on him to to make the museum part of it we was you know we was working on race cars and building cars to go to Daytona for that that year and and he just started hanging pictures in here and all these pictures I don't know where they came from I don't know where they were until they got in here our mom kept everything picture-wise or any articles or anything like that she kept all that and he framed them too uh every one up pretty much yeah but he would come in here with a had a had him a ladn had him a had him a little hammer and a I'll show you the thing he measured you they did it he didn't have a tape measure he had a I guess a a carpenter rule that was his hammer so it's brand new you can see not we think it might have been his mother's Hammer okay so yeah so that's you know that's how you was Daddy's tape measure know did he use that for everything yeah everything well well at least you didn't when you stuck it up right you didn't have to worry about flopping back over you even you think about it that that works better than you might think yeah that's interesting but uh that's that that's what you know Carpenters Ed back in the day I think it's interesting you got there's a lot of stuff on the walls that aren't even Wood Brothers related just other significant figures of racing friends I gu is pretty cool just whatever like this is a um a case kind of and Neil Bonnet got you know three of his uniforms one of his helmets just things that you know were related to him um kle yeah that's there's Kyle that's that helmet actually was the one k Kyle used at Richmond first race he ever won that's a picture of him down at the mom in the car with that helmet on when you when you keep stuff like that you want to have a picture to prove it you know just and we've tried to do that so that's Kyle and uh Adam and Richard this this picture right here this Adam Petty and John and a petty when Kyle was driving our car oh wow so you guys are like two family organizations and you were kind of like yeah they said it would never they said it would never work when you know Kyle came to drive here but that's probably the most fun I've ever had you know he was here from 85 through 88 and that's probably the most fun we had racing was it because Kyle was a fun guy or what made that fun Kyle's Kyle I mean I don't really you know Kyle where will or not but what you see is Kyle huh he just he just he he grew up like we did in and around it and the the funny thing we would he would ride with us a lot of times to the racetrack and we' talk about you know at dinner time how was dinner time at your house well it was at 5:00 we called it supper not dinner dinner was lunch and they were the same way things it was talked about things that she got in trouble with was the same are those some of uh Leonard's RC cars M we've heard that cuz in the the petty Museum there's one of his RC cars in there yep and that's how we came up with the idea of taking the body off of one cuz all these have bodies on them and we gave one to Richard Petty and gave one to Dale emman and we went to lunch with Dale and we came back and Richard had took the body off and had it displayed like this cuz it's got a plaque on it where handcrafted by Leonard Wood it would have been for Richard Petty this one for us for the Wood Brothers Museum I said we need to do that too did he want to see how it worked I think he wanted to show the plaque off of who made it it cuz see Leonard he engraves his name on it see Richard's name would have been right there that was it for Richard P at d l whatever leard but signed on the KN should we get Leonard Leonard's sign here today by the way just worked out that way but we get him up here to do that but we get him up here for about 15 20 minutes yeah yeah he's got a dinner thing he's got to go to but all right so that's a 427 tunnel Port um there's something wrong with it reason it's on a stand uh but it was in a 63 Galaxy replica that we did when the pandemic hit we were looking for something for lonard to do and he built a half scale of this engine and it's at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn Michigan right now and so what he did uh our machinist Benny beler and Leonard handmade all this stuff with like Bridge ports and lays no CNC no digital printing none of that and basically like this this little intake was made out of a block of aluminum like that so the block of aluminum weighs 30 lb this little intake weighs six so there was 24 lb of shavings come out of that wow so then the other thing he does is makes little bitty carburetors so they were made out of those blocks that's so cool these will run on an engine like a 390 H and those were made from that right there so then we go right here so this is like 19 19 70 carburetor kale yarber would have set on pole at Daytona run 194 mph so he made a half scale of it he made he actually made four of these three of these and two of these that's called an Autolite carburetor or Ford carburetor that's from the late 50s it's like my dad would have raced on the beach how long is it taken to make one of these just like you a bunch of them how long one take they would make The Machinist would take can make a body but he would make machine all four bodies at one time or three bodies every how many you making and cuz the setup making fixtures took a long time setup took a long time so I'm going to say start to finish probably six or seven weeks maybe wow cuz this one came out of a block aluminum just like that because this one has base plate on it that would have the butterflies in it this one does not have a base plate on it so it' had to come out of a much larger block of aluminum uh let's do a thing on trophies okay yeah let's we're going to walk around is that okay yeah yeah we walking around I'll show you okay we got we've got different different trophies um some are real was the one some are a fewer replicas whatever but that's a Elliot sat Bristol win trophy that's a a copy that's a buddy Baker's last win firecracker 400 at uh 1983 that's a real trophy this is a blay trophy a duplicate of Blay's win at Pocono in 2017 these three are Marvin pants trophies up here these and the tall one behind it is is Marvin pants trophy we go and look at the front of it but these are Daddy's trophies our Trevor Bane duplicate trophy from Daytona 500 2011 goes here but it's it's Nascar Hall of Fame as well as our tiny Lun 1963 Dayton of 500 trophy they're both at Hall of Fame so what we did to fill the case up while it's gone these are um dated 1952 and 54 so that's the oldest dated trophies that we have CU they don't get much older than that do they well Daddy started in 1950 and he he won in 50 but the trophies are were not marked I don't think but that's that's the oldest ones that we have that are dated 52 and 54 but they were winning you know here is a Pearson David Pearson trophy kale yarar trophy AJ ft Ontario Motor Speedway uh qualifying trophy pole trophy uh I think it's a k yardo trophy AJ for Daytona 500 trophy a Neil Bonnet World 600 1981 80 or 81 AJ F that was the second year of Ontario would been 1972 he won 80 71 and 72 he won first two out at Ontario which that track's long gone right here that's another AJ for pole trophy an AJ for pole trophy from uh Texas World Speedway that was in College Station Texas I think it's a parking lot for the whatever that last big flood they had down there or hurricane it's a parking lot for rental cars now uh that's a Neil Bonnet Atlanta trophy that's a a Dan gurny Riverside trophy Riverside of California he won four races in our car he won five riversides but four in our car is that with the 121 car yeah and so then we go back over here can kind of offer trophies of some of uh Jordan stuff and some of John's stuff this is some of more of Daddy's stuff here see you can see the older trophies but they're they're not dated H you know they look they look the part of being old but they're not dated so they didn't even put the race on it they just had a bunch of trophies that looked like that and they pull out of a box say here you go uh then there's there's a modified in back that Donnie Allison want to race in Cardinal 300 at 1967 at Martinsville that's a trophy that goes with it uh most of these are daddies this is a AJ Fort daytoner 500 1972 Governor's Cup trophy Neil Bonnet Dover trophy um Daddy's more Daddy's trophies there's one in here that's a it's a Neil Bonnet U Southern 500 1981 is I believe um daddy was most popular driver at Bowman gra stadium in 54 uh he was most popular driver of NASCAR there's trophy it may be at the hall of fame like 57 or eight what's with the Steelers football okay Steelers fan next no I I grew I grew up in Pittsburgh but I would call myself a Steelers fan I was wondering what that's doing in a race shop some some kid gave it to us but I was a uh drove theer games from here yeah I us used to go to Three Rivers my wife and I we'd drive up here and drive up to Monday night game get tickets wow and then drive home and of course work on Tuesday but I've got to get back to collected stuff I was at the last game at Through Rivers when I was like five I don't remember it but I seen pictures of me being there okay you know L Swan is obviously yeah okay that Bonet was in a celebrity Grand Prix thing in uh Long Beach Toyota Grand Prix and L Swan was his co-driver M so he knew I was a Steeler fan so he took the uniform off of Neil of ly Swan and right there just packed it up threw it in the suitcase and gave it to me so I that's why that got there that's really neat how did Lyn do Drive in a race car I don't remember I think more of that was just having fun but uh a lot of people did that deal back then and that's is that how Terry Bradshaw got into being a race fan and owning a team I don't know where Brad sha you know he was from Louisiana yeah I think Brad sha Franco Harris Rocky BL that whole Joe Green yeah I can name them all so here's example of the five brothers except Ray Lee has been cut out of another picture and stuck in there in inste of kbo this is a kale y from there down so there again that's a home homemade that's what you call it AI whatever that is photosh old school Photoshop yeah whatever that is it's like you you can see now that proportionally his torso is like way bigger than everybody else's if you didn't say anything I wouldn't have noticed though no you wouldn't notice got pictures at Martinville as well we have a a bouquet of Checker flags from different eras one over here with a Firebird on it that's like from uh 63 that was pure Firebird what was that that was called and the 76 stuff and then on around to sonoko on the far side yeah it used to be pure oil company which led to unical you know later on sonoko took over back to the early 60s off topic but I thought that this was really cool okay so Uncle Leonard when he was 14ish he carved these out of wood that's a wood yeah and he he would carve them out to the little ones and sell them for a dollar or whatever I I was looking at that earlier and I didn't realize it was wood he make these little chassis for him too okay so he found that that's only been here like 3 or 4 years he found to clean it up but that's a chassis that he made see it has little bitty Springs on it yeah it was made out of I'll call it scrap steel that's that's how we would have start something like this did he like learn how to solder stuff together and oh he can do anything like that's just really cool like the Ingenuity and how it evolved yeah but like these I mean like this right here that's a welding rod that what looks like Chrome M that's a welding rod that he's made look like Chrome and like the the I should say the bumper on this one uh the bumper on this one that was made out of like a 1 in block of aluminum you say these were welding rods that right there was welding rods wow I don't know what how to describe that other than that's really freaking cool he made the wheels exhaust pipes yeah tail pipes see we were in the RC cars L that were in the late 70s before it was cool back here M we would go to California and see them out there CU that's where you can buy all the stuff and U they were eighth scale most stuff now is 12th scale but these were eight they were quite a bit bigger and I got a couple of them in the back back there but they were anything we broke he could fix it make another one they used to have these little plastic cators on the on the engines and You' break that pretty quickly and so he made some aluminum carburators I think there's one over here in the Showcase I can imagine you you guys must have been pretty worldly compared to the other kids your age back then who this area is pretty isolated now I can only imagine what it was like at that time engine under there he made that carburetor to replace a plastic one mhm and the tail pipe and the heat sink and the little rods back there and there see those Little Rock little connecting rods oh yeah we got in this my God it's going to be a drag race a friend of ours uh named Paul Covington he had a an RC shot over in King North Carolina and he was going we were going to just like drag race my car against his and course I blew mine up stretched the rods so Leonard made a t that that those rods are made out of a titanium valve out of race car it's got a pressed in brass bushing it's so small I can't even see the bushing you can't even see it but yeah so we had we had a pretty good advantage on that kind of stuff you probably had the most hopped up RC cars in the on this anywhere they'd run about 70 M an hour that's insane all right let's do shirts yeah there's I think the the density of interesting in this room is very high okay these three are from the 50s and then this group here is from the 60s and actually that was one of them that they wore at Indianapolis when they pitted Jimmy Clark 1965 and one IND 500 so that's what we pattern our shirts after today the second year they went to Indie was for with Dan gurnie an All-American Eagle uh that was a shirt they wore there but that was uh he wrecked on a first or second lap so that didn't go as well these start into our Pure later days which goes through this up to like 7980 then we had Warner hodon for a couple years how'd that go uh he wanted to run out one or one wanted to run all the races we weren't ready for that so after a period of time um he left um and then we got Valene is that whenever he went to Juniors yes because he took Neil Bonnet oh NE Neil Bonnet went with him and we got Buddy Baker you know so we both moved on we're still friends with we had one of our cars back here um Warner passed away several years ago and uh his sons he has two sons Aaron and Justin hodin hodon and we we get along great with those everybody you know we get along with everybody why does that shirt have a Shelby tag um Shelby that's that's whoever made the shirts I guess uh cuz back in the day like all these are what's called henchmen that's an Indianapolis company be honest with you that's the first time I've ever seen that Shelby I paid attention to it see those are those are like bowling shirts so that was by what's that called Hilton yeah they got bowling pins on them y I never know that's funny yeah that and then so uh most of the stuff here is uh Simpson stuff made most of these so does that mean the the lineage of the NASCAR crew shirt could be traced back to bowling shirts well no it traced back to these what were the what were these they weren't bowling shirts were they no no but they were they were henchmen and actually when we did a thing in uh 20 late 2010 when Daddy got 2011 Daddy got nominated to the Hall of Fame class at 12 and so we ran a race with Daddy's I think a Hood's back there daddy's head is on the hood and we had new ones made and so what we did we call called henchmen and the guy says listen we still have the patterns for those this was 45 years later H so he made us using the same cloth the only thing he couldn't do that's term big loop embroidery M he said they still had the machine but everybody that knew how to run it was either gone or dead so it was a smooth embroidery a more I'll call it modern embroidery was the only only difference but we wear them like uh the throwback races at Darlington we usually pull those out so so they they looked apart so those those henchmen shirts what was their origin made fire suits they I mean like that style shirt where did it come from first like now I'm curious about where the that type of shirt originated from bowling shirts well they're square cut on the bottom yeah like these I think it's that's how they started like you said these Hilton ones got a bowling pin in the in the collar yeah and this right here's got Shelby yeah henchman from Indianapolis and they made uniforms for all the Indie guys and fire suits and stuff you know the fire it's like uh the prettiest one I have to do some digging into that now it's like okay there's the picture Pier there's a there's a real there's an old one the ones with it's got the color like on this side probably or is just the stripe down the one side yeah those were Hench okay that's where that started to go back to this um red and white shirt in the 60s this was during the Ford factory days um um that all the cars and each each team like uh our dad's colors red and white the renen which was H Moody car was…