Wood Brothers Have Fond Memories of NASCAR’s Clown Prince, The Late Jabe Thomas
June 10, 2015
For Len and Eddie Wood, co-owners of the No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Fusion that Ryan Blaney will drive this weekend at Michigan International Speedway, the friendships made through the years are something to be cherished.
Among the people who have been close to the Wood family for decades was Jabe Thomas, the retired racer from Christiansburg, Va., who died June 4 at the age of 85.
Thomas was a journeyman racer who moved to the series now known as Sprint Cup after racing Modifieds on some of the same Virginia tracks that the Wood Brothers once raced.
In the Cup series, he made 322 starts from 1965 to 1978, with three top-five and 77 top-10 finishes.
Thomas, who lived about an hour’s drive north of the Woods’ home base in Stuart, was one of the people who made the NASCAR garage an interesting place back in the day.
“He was known as the Clown Prince of racing throughout his career,” Len Wood recalled. “He was always pulling a practical joke on somebody. And you never saw him without a smile on his face.”
But when a friend was in need, Thomas could be counted on to lend a hand.
Wood recalled a trip home from a race in Riverside, Calif., in January of 1980 when Thomas came to their rescue.
It was Super Bowl Sunday. Len Wood, his brother Eddie and father Glen were driving the team’s six-wheeler hauler home from Riverside, where the race had been started the Sunday before and rain delayed until the following Saturday. The trio was mostly interested in following the Pittsburgh Steelers who were playing the Los Angeles Rams on the portable TV they were carrying. But as they were approaching an exit ramp near Picacho Peak, Arizona, the priorities changed.
“Daddy was driving,” Wood said. “He rolled out of the gas and as he turned down the ramp the engine backfired, as the timing chain failed.
At least one NASCAR rig passed them by, but Jabe Thomas, who by that time had turned the driving over to his son Ronnie, stopped to help.
After a man named Emmett B Nutter pulled the disabled rig to his nearby gas station, the Thomas boys took the Woods to a motel in Tucson.
There they waited until a mechanic, who worked at a Virginia Ford dealership and helped the Woods on the weekends, flew west with the parts to repair the truck.
Thomas, who bought parts from the Woods back in his Modified racing days, remained friends with the family long after his racing days were over.
A few months back, he made his final visit to the Woods’ shop in Stuart.
“He was in failing health, but he was still old Jabe,” Len Wood said.
The days of Sprint Cup teams traveling across the continent in six-wheel haulers and races being postponed six days are long gone, but some things remain the same.
Rain is still an ever-present worry, especially for the Woods, who don’t run a full schedule and therefore aren’t eligible for provisional starting spots if rain washes out qualifying.
At Michigan this weekend, there are 44 teams entered, which means one will go home. If it were to rain out qualifying, the No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Fusion would miss the race.
“It is what it is,” Wood said of that scenario. “But one thing’s for sure, if we do miss the race, it won’t be due to performance.”
“Our cars have been fast.”
Qualifying for the Quicken Loans 400 is set for Friday at 4:15 p.m. and the race should get the green flag just after 1:00 p.m., with TV coverage on Fox Sports 1.