Wood on fire in sizzling Darwin Supercars practice
The Walkinshaw Andretti United youngster outpaced nearest challenger Broc Feeney by more than two-tenths of a second in the Top End dry-season heat on Friday.
Wood set the best lap of one minute and 7.059 seconds, with championship-leader Feeney 0.265 seconds behind and Triple Eight teammate Will Brown another hundredth of a second behind him in third.
Drivers tested the limits of Hidden Valley's challenging 2.9km circuit, with several racers overshooting the long, loopy left-hander at turn one.
A patch of parched grass at the end of the turn was set alight after Brown ran his Camaro off towards the end of the session.
With temperatures expected to run into the 30s throughout the weekend - and up to 50C inside cars - drivers' endurance will be as much of a challenge as keeping their cars running.
Feeney was the first driver to run off on the first turn at the end of the 1.1km straight, but recovered to set a speedy lap time that had him at the top of the totem for most of the session.
The 22-year-old won the last two races in Perth and showed promising pace as he looks to extend his 72-point gap at the top of the leaderboard at the track he won two races at last year.
Teenage wildcard entrant Rylan Gray, Matt Stone Racing veteran Nick Percat and Tickford's Cam Waters also took excursions off the track on turn one, while Andre Heimgartner battled to hold onto control of his lively Camaro on several occasions.
Drivers will return for the final practice session at 2.55pm (ACST) on Friday, ahead of Saturday's back-to-back qualifying sessions.
Two 120km races will follow qualifying on Saturday, before the final 200km race of the weekend on Sunday.
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