The Wood Brothers and driver Bill Elliott are sporting the “Warriors in Pink” logo on the hood of the No. 21 Ford Fusion this weekend to raise awareness for the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. Co-owner Len Wood and Elliott spoke about the paint scheme before today’s practice at Lowe’s Motor Speedway.
LEN WOOD, Co-Owner – No. 21 Warriors in Pink Ford Fusion – THE 21 CAR HAS BEEN A LOT OF DIFFERENT COLORS BEFORE, BUT HAS IT EVER BEEN PINK? “This is the first pink race car that I can remember. We have pink numbers, but it’s primarily a burgundy and white car. We went around and around on the paint scheme because we weren’t sure if how it looked on paper would translate well to the race car, but I think it looks great. I think having the burgundy on it, with some touches of pink, it doesn’t get lost out there as just another pink car. The thing I’m really happy about is we were able to get the full Warriors in Pink logo on the car, so it looks really nice.” HAVE YOU OR YOUR FAMILY BEEN TOUCHED BY CANCER? “Fortunately, it has not touched me or anyone in my family, but we know there are a lot of families out there that have been and this is an opportunity to create some awareness. We went to the Carolina Panthers game the other day and DeAngelo Williams’ mom was there and with a group of survivors wearing t-shirts and trying to raise awareness, so this type of thing is happening everyone. What I’m proud of being a representative of Ford is that this isn’t just something Ford does in October, it’s a year-round deal and that’s special.” HOW DID THIS DEAL COME ABOUT? “We were pleased to be in a position to do the paint scheme and help Ford with the awareness for Warriors in Pink. We didn’t originally have this race on our schedule, but we added recently. It was one of those situations where we had a certain amount of money and tried to figure out how many races we could run with that. Instead of saying 15 and then have to possibly back up, we went with 12 and as we’ve gone through the year we’ve re-evaluated things and added the All-Star Race and this one. Fortunately, it worked out really well for everyone.”
BILL ELLIOTT – No. 21 Warriors in Pink Ford Fusion – HOW DO YOU LIKE THE WAY YOUR RACE CAR LOOKS THIS WEEKEND? “I think it looks pretty good, but the big thing is it’s for a good cause. This is an important issue and that’s what we hope people realize when they see all of these pink cars out on the race track this weekend. It means a lot for the people involved in this to raise awareness and raise money to help find a cure for breast cancer. Having our car painted up this way is another tool we can use to get the word out and doing things like this, I think, is important. We need to be doing stuff like this and I’m proud to be able to do my part.” NOW YOU JUST NEED TO GET THE CAR RUNNING A LITTLE BETTER THAN YESTERDAY. “Yesterday was just one of those days. It felt like Friday the 13th all over again, but the main thing is we got through it and now we’ll just go from there.”