LEN WOOD – co-owner, No. 21 Little Debbie Ford Fusion – "Bill Elliott came up a little while ago, and I guess he had run into Boris across the garage, and he asked him what he was doing, and Boris said, ‘Nothing,’ you know, he had missed the race. I don’t know from where it started, if Bill asked him to drive our car or what. I think that’s the way it went because Bill came to me and said that in the best interests of the team, let’s put Boris in.

He said I’ll give it my best effort, and Bill’s an excellent road racer, the first place he ever won was at Riverside, but he suggested putting Boris in. We first cleared it with sponsors and then went to NASCAR and cleared it with them."

IT WAS BILL’S IDEA? "It was Bill’s idea. I was standing right there and he comes over and goes, ‘Come here a second.’ He came up with it. Like he said, ‘I’ll leave it up to y’all, but I’ll do the best I can, but I think is the best for the team to try to get back in the top 35."

DID YOU HAVE TO CHANGE SEATS OR PEDALS AT ALL? "Bill’s kind of tall. I think there’s only a couple of inches difference, although Boris looks towering, I guess, but he had already been in the car, I think while I was in the NASCAR trailer he was already in the car."

WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT BORIS? HAD YOU EVER WORKED WITH HIM BEFORE? "We didn’t know Boris at all and made a blind phone call to him – I think it was the first year we had Elliott Sadler, which would be 1999 – and we asked Boris to go help test with Elliott at Sonoma.

Like I say, without knowing each other, he did anything we asked, he bent over backwards for us, and when we got done we asked him how much we owed, and he said, basically, pay me what you think I was worth. And we’ve remained friends ever since.

Eddie [Wood] called him a couple of years ago, might’ve been last year, when we were talking about going to Mexico for the first time, and we wanted him to get some seat time with Jon [Wood] and we had a car of Jack Roush’s that had two seats in it – and this was January or February – Boris flew out here, red-eye, drove up from Greensboro, tested that day and basically flew back to Mexico to go race.

It was a deal like that. He doesn’t want to be known as a teacher, he wants to be known as a race driver, but he’s excellent at both I think."

BILL ELLIOTT – No. 21 Little Debbie Ford Fusion – "I thought a little bit about it last night – I didn’t know what Boris had going on, but when I came in this morning, I just happened to run into him at the gate and I said, ‘What are you doing tomorrow?’ And he said he wasn’t doing anything. So, the wheels started turning. I think I do okay road racing, I mean, I’m not the world’s greatest, but the problem that I have is I haven’t road-raced since Sonoma.

And this team is so close to where they need to be, and Bill Elliott doesn’t need the points, so why should my selfishness take away from this race team, if – I feel like with Boris, having come off fresh from racing last week and as much as he’s road-raced, I feel he can do better than I could. And that’s the reason I did what I did."

YOU KEPT MENTIONING "TEAM," WHICH SHOWS THAT THIS IS NOT AN INDIVIDUAL SPORT, BUT A TEAM SPORT. "It is. And that’s what I told Len. When I went to talk to him, I said, ‘Look, I feel like this is better for this team. I think I can do okay, but there’s no guarantees. There’s no guarantees what he’s going to do, but just given the odds of what he could do versus what I could do, I feel like he’s the better choice of the two.’

I said, ‘Now, when we go to Michigan, that’ll be a little different deal.’ He ran good at Sonoma in these things, and it’s just unfortunate that the way weather got us yesterday. I mean, I’ve got mixed emotions about it. I really want to drive. I enjoy driving.

What Len and Eddie and this team needs is the best shot they can absolutely get, and I feel this is it. So, we put it together and here we are, and we’ll make the best of it. That’s the way I feel."

BORIS SAID – No. 21 Little Debbie Ford Fusion – "Totally shocked. I was walking by Bill Elliott this morning, and he said, ‘Hey, want to drive my car?’ And I was, like, ‘Sure.’ I thought he was kidding around. Nobody had ever done anything like that in my life for me, that generous, where he just stepped aside.

He knew how bad I wanted to drive. He’s forgotten more about driving than I know. It’s just something he did for the team, and for me, and I guess that’s why they call him Awesome Bill. It just shocked me, made my day."

LEN WOOD SAID THAT YOU AND THE TEAM HAD WORKED TOGETHER IN THE PAST, SO THIS ISN’T AN ALL-NEW SITUATION FOR YOU, IS IT? "No. They were actually the first team that ever called me to come up and help one of their drivers, Elliott Sadler, so they were the first people I ever really met in NASCAR Nextel Cup.

I’ve known them ever since then, and they’re great guys, the Wood Brothers. To be driving for them is just shocking to me. If anyone would’ve ever told me I’d ever drive a Wood Brothers car, I’d have told they were crazy. For Bill Elliott to step aside like that is just amazing."

DID YOU TELL THEM YOU WOULD DO IT FULL-TIME NEXT YEAR? "Exactly. I’d do it full-time for anybody. It’s just that yesterday was so disappointing. All the work that Frankie Stoddard and our team’s done to make our No Fear car so fast at every race, and then two weeks in a row you get shut out because of Mother Nature, it hurt. I was pretty grumpy last night."

HOW DID THE CONVERSATION START? "I was walking to my Busch car and I was walking by Bill, and he was like, ‘Hey, man. You want to drive my car?’ And I’m like, ‘Sure, no problem, I’ll drive.’ I just thought he was kidding around. Mike McSwain came over – he said Fatback, but I have a hard time calling him Fatback, I don’t know what I’m supposed to call him, but he came over and said, ‘No, no. It was Bill’s idea.’ I was shocked. Awesome. Awesome Bill."

HOW DO YOU FIT IN THE CAR? "The car’s a little tight, bit I’ll adapt. It’s a long race."

THIS MUST BE AN EMOTIONAL TWO DAYS FOR YOU. "Two weeks in a row – at Daytona, where Frankie Stoddard gave us one of the fastest cars on the track, which would’ve been a sure pole, probably, and a chance to be in the Bud Shootout again, to get shutout and then the same thing happened yesterday.

I was more disappointed yesterday because right after they called it, it got really nice out. I’m eating dinner at 7:30 last nigh, it was so nice, I’m like, ‘Man, why couldn’t they have finished qualifying?’ It was disappointing night. And then today, to wake up, it was like a Christmas present."

HOW WAS THE CAR THIS MORNING? "It was pretty good. You just have to get used to working with different people. It’s not my car so I’ve got to be a little careful, so I’ll take it kind of slow. But I think the car will be pretty good."

WILL THE CAR OF TOMORROW BE EASIER TO ADJUST TO THAN A STANDARD CAR? "Maybe. These guys are so good, you could give them a mule and they’d be just as fast and competitive, so I don’t think it really matters what car it is. It’s still a steering wheel, gas pedal, a brake pedal – all those things."

 - Ford -