Woods Brothers and Awesome Bill could be gone for good Story Highlights
Bill Elliott and the Woods brothers are fighting to keep their race car in business
Elliott is considering calling it quits at 53
Many teams are experiencing difficulties in the tough economic times

One of NASCAR's most popular drivers is trying to bring some stability to the Woods Brother Ford.

Midway down the final results sheet at Martinsville Sunday, the No. 21 Wood Brothers Ford was listed in 16th place. It was the best finish on an oval for them this season, a hopeful sign of better things to come for an organization headed by a man known simply as Awesome Bill.

But when you're a car that's won 97 Cup races throughout 50+ years in the series, a finish like 16th is not exactly an "awesome" achievement.

"They had several things go wrong," says Bill Elliott of a season that's become the biggest struggle in both his and the Woods' career. "It's just been one thing after another."

With four races to go this season, Elliott's pondering calling it quits at 53, after 44 wins, 55 poles and a 1988 Cup championship to his credit. It's an interesting turn of events for a man who spent years on top, but who has joined forces with a Wood Brothers team that's also struggling to stay relevant on the track each weekend. Both may have no other choice than to consider futures outside of racing.

After failing to qualify eight times in 32 attempts, the team is about to watch primary sponsor Little Debbie bolt, along with the Woods' development driver, Marcos Ambrose. That just leaves Elliott and family driver Jon Wood scratching and clawing for an organization that once dominated the circuit to the tune of 10 wins a season in the 1970s. And with Wood not yet ready to tackle the Cup level full-time, continuing to rely on Elliott to bring both money and experience may be the team's only hope to survive.

"Bless their hearts, they've tried," Elliott said in a season in which he's helped more than perhaps even he expected. "We just can't pick our way back into the Top 35, where [we] need be."

The inability to secure a "locked in" qualifying spot has forced the team to make the field on speed each week. And while Elliott's past champion's provisional has been a savior, his part-time schedule keeps it from being a cure-all for the No. 21. Among the team's eight DNQs have been three when Elliott was in the driver's seat, including the prestigious Daytona 500, the first time in over 40 years that the Woods were out of that starting lineup.

"They had several things go wrong," Elliott said. "Then, we go to California and we're 26 points out of the Top 35 [after finishing 26th], only to go to Las Vegas [where Jon Wood stepped into the driver's seat] and miss the race."

It's taken the team months to recover and find the speed to compete from that poor start. Of course, speed costs money; and when you ask why the Woods are failing, Elliott's quick to point to the number of cars they own on the Cup tour: one.

"Being a single car entity in this sport today is just so hard to ever make work," he says. "There's so many advantages to having a multi-car team as far as being able to subsidize through sponsorship."

That extra money -- upwards of $100 million for a four-car team compared to maybe $15 million for a single car -- pays dividends in more than offseason testing. "You have a better opportunity to keep good drivers and good crew guys because you have multiple resources," Elliott explained.

After Elliott left the full-time grind in 2003, one might wonder why he came back for five years of part-time work, most of which was spent with struggling teams like this one. There's plenty for him to do outside the cockpit, including run a Driver Development program of his own, which includes 12-year-old son, Chase. But Elliott has no regrets about spending his final two years on the track with a team that's trying to simply crack the Top 20.

"For me, doing the Woods deal is not about the money," he explained. "I am a competitive person. I still enjoy driving a race car."

"I feel like if I went back and could run every race and have everything like those guys running up front, that I could still be relatively competitive, like Mark [Martin] is [at 49]. I ain't in a Hendrick car. I ain't in a Roush car. I'm not in that stuff. But I really like the bond that we've got between the Woods group. We went to Bristol, we qualified 5th and we were running 12th when we were in a wreck in Turn 1. But you've got to take it and go on. The way this sport is, when it catches you down it ain't gonna let up. And that's the bad side of it."

The Woods just wonder when it's all going to bottom out. Of course, this driver/owner pairing isn't the only single car team struggling. Robby Gordon is still trying to put the finishing touches on sponsorship for his self-owned team next season. Bill Davis Racing and driver Dave Blaney are staring at zero funding for '09. All of them could be staring at joining recent casualties like three-time Daytona 500 winner Morgan McClure in the racing graveyard.

"Now the perception in the marketplace is a single car team is not a viable deal," Elliott claims. "With that in the marketplace, it makes it virtually impossible to get sponsorship [to even compete]. If you look at the guys who are single car teams today, they're people who either got a lot of money or access to a lot of money, and they're using their own business [to fund the car]. But they're coming and going."

In just a few short weeks, that leaves Elliott and the Woods with the possibility of being gone for good. But if this really is the end, the 33-year veteran is simply taking it all in stride.

"I can't control everything that goes on in this sport," he said. "But I am glad of where I'm at. And I know my hand is short versus a long time. In the last five races here, I'm going to give it my best shot. And we'll see what happens."