Don’t let the 13th-place finish fool you. Jon Wood had one of the fastest trucks in Friday night’s Ford 200 at the Homestead-Miami Speedway.

He started on the pole – his first since the 2003 season – and he easily led the first 18 laps. A caution on the 16th lap fro Justin Marks’ spin allowed half the lead-lap cars to make pit stops. The other half, including Wood, stayed out. A 57-lap green flag run meant Wood needed to pit the No. 21 CarRacing.com Ford under green. A caution for debris on Lap 75 kept him from contending again.

Wood, who plans to return to the Wood Brothers/JTG Racing Ford F-150 next year, had hoped to get the race team into the Top 10 in the car owner standings. He took over in the No. 21 Ford in July when the truck was 21st in the standings. His late-season rally came up 49 points short of the Top 10.

Wood, Mark Martin, Keven Wood and Kelly Bires all shared the driving duties in the No. 21 Ford this year. They combined for 11 Top-10 finishes this year.

WHAT THE TEAM HAS TO SAY

Jon Wood, Driver No. 21 CarRacing.com Ford F-150:
“There won’t be another pole sitter for the rest of the year,” he said. “I will be the last pole sitter until Daytona and that’s pretty cool. For the rest of the winter, I can say that I finally got my qualifying efforts together. I just wanted the race to follow in the footsteps of my qualifying run.

“I really didn’t want to get my hopes and everyone else's hopes up and set myself up for a let down before the race. I knew from the get-go that we had one of the dominant trucks here. Of course, that didn’t predict what happened in the race. But qualifying certainly demonstrated that we had our stuff together.

“I’m extremely frustrated by finishing 13th because we were a lot better than that. We got out of sequence with some of the other lead-lap trucks. If that caution for debris came out five laps earlier, we’re in great shape and everyone else is at the back. That’s just the way it plays out sometimes.”