NASCAR: Wood Brothers Racing hauler involved in highway crash

The hauler of NASCAR Cup Series team Wood Brothers Racing was involved in a crash on the highway coming home from the O’Reilly Auto Parts 500 at Texas Motor Speedway.

While returning to Mooresville, North Carolina, the team’s home base, from the O’Reilly Auto Parts 500, NASCAR Cup Series race at Texas Motor Speedway in Forth Worth, Texas, the Wood Brothers Racing team hauler was involved in a highway crash in Birmingham, Alabama.

Paul Menard, the team’s lone driver, had just driven the #21 Ford to a 19th place finish in the 334-lap race around the four-turn, 1.5-mile (2.414-kilometer) high-banked oval after starting in 14th and having a race full of misfortune.

Wood Brothers Racing announced this crash on Twitter.

Fortunately nobody was hurt as a result of this accident, and although the tractor was damaged, it was the only piece of equipment that was damaged.

Here is what a Wood Brothers Racing spokesman had to say about the matter, according to NBC Sports.

"“We can confirm that our team’s race hauler was involved in an accident in Birmingham, as it was returning to Mooresville from Ft. Worth. There were no injuries and our transportation team was not at fault. The tractor was the only piece of equipment damaged.”"

Of course, considering this wreck took place on Monday, April 1, there were skeptics at first, and justifiably so, as many news outlets, including motorsports websites (including us) posted April Fools’ Day articles on this fun-filled day of people actually stopping to question everything they read on the internet (now if only this became a trend…).

However, Wood Brothers Racing tweeted again confirmed that this hauler wreck did, in fact, happen. Ironically, they did it by referencing our April Fools’ Day article about Carl Edwards returning to the Cup Series to drive for Team Penske.

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Our article about Edwards joining Team Penske involved the three-car team, which currently have a technical alliance with the one-car Wood Brothers Racing team, fully acquiring the #21 Ford and becoming a four-car team, with Edwards sit to drive the #21 Ford as a teammate to Brad Keselowski, Ryan Blaney and Joey Logano.

This would effectively have made Wood Brothers Racing, the longest active NASCAR team no longer a NASCAR team (and it would effectively have made a “Wood Brothers Racing leaving NASCAR after 2019” article a fantastic lead-in April Fools’ Day story).

Despite the article stating at the end that it was only an April Fools’ Day joke, Wood Brothers Racing actually had people contacting them about it.

But before we officially confirm that we are being bought out by Winston Cup Scene (announcement set for Wednesday, April 1, 2020 — maybe), let’s just take a moment to be grateful that everyone is safe and sound following this hauler accident — and that Wood Brothers Racing are hopefully here to stay as NASCAR‘s longest active team.