TEAM PLAYER; Jack Roush is helping the Wood Brothers return to glory.(News)

Byline: AL PEARCE

Jack Roush has a full plate. Five Winston Cup teams. Two Craftsman Truck Series teams. A multi-state empire filled with engine- and car-builders, marketing and sponsorship teams, and a distribution system for parts and pieces.

And, when he has a spare moment, a handshake agreement to help the Wood Brothers with their Motorcraft-sponsored Ford team. "It's not even a handshake deal,'' says Eddie Wood, part owner of the Winston Cup team his father and uncles began 50-some years ago. "There's no contract, no handshake, no nothing. Jack helps us and we help him, but it goes beyond business. It even goes beyond friendships. It's almost like family. Our families have been close so long, everything has grown out of that.''

It seems odd that Roush has the time or the inclination to help brothers Eddie and Len Wood try to return their No. 21 Ford team to its glory years. There were times between the late '60s and early '80s when A.J. Foyt, Cale Yarborough, David Pearson and Neil Bonnett won in Wood Brothers' cars with regularity. In more recent times, the Stuart, Virginia-based organization has won with Morgan Shepherd, Buddy Baker, Dale Jarrett, Kyle Petty and Elliott Sadler.

Roush was drag racing in the late '60s when he began buying parts, pieces and entire engines from team founders Glen and Len Wood. In the mid-'80s, when Roush was putting together his Winston Cup program, he often went to the Woods for advice. "Jack had energy and the people to make it work, but he didn't know all the ins and outs of NASCAR racing,'' said team co-owner Len Wood. "He had success pretty quickly and got good. That was right about the time we began to struggle.

"He'd send us a camshaft that was better than anything we had. Then we started going to him for help with our restrictor-plate program because we kept burning up engines. We were getting our other motors from [the late] Tommy Turner at Holman-Moody, but that began to not work so well. So in the late '90s we finally went to Jack for all our motors.''

Like any other customer, the Woods pay Roush for parts and pieces. But they get his abiding friendship and interest in their team without charge. "We've never doubted that what he tells us is right,'' says Eddie Wood. "Obviously, we wouldn't keep going to him if we ever doubted what he was telling us was right.''