Bollman Scores Career-Best Finish at Tucson

Venue: Tucson Speedway

Date: April 5th

Start: 1st

Finish: 3rd

Jake Bollman captured his best-career ARCA Menards Series West (AMSW) finish with a third-place result at Tucson Speedway on Saturday night. The driver of the No. 19 NAPA Auto Care Chevrolet SS came close to his first-career win after leading laps late and took part in a three-way battle for the lead. His first top-five finish comes in just his sixth-career AMSW start.

Bollman notched his first-career pole award with a lap of 15.977 seconds after setting the pace in practice. After leading the field to green, Bollman employed an aggressive tire conservation strategy to preserve his tires for the final laps. Though he ran as low as seventh, Bollman took advantage of a restart on lap 84 to rocket back towards the front.

He immediately advanced from sixth to fourth and made a run towards the lead. Bollman tracked down the leaders with 21 laps to go to claim the top spot in the waning laps. With less than five laps to go, Bollman found himself in a compelling three-wide tilt for the win. Bollman took the checkered flag in third for the best result of the season for the NAPA Auto Care team.

Jake Bollman Quote:

“I don’t know if we could have done anything really different. I just feel like we lacked a little drive there and were free there at the end. It happens. This is only my (sixth) ARCA race, and second one with these guys. It’s still a learning experience for me too. I think we could have saved (tires) maybe a little bit longer. I don’t know if it would have changed, but still overall a good finish for the team. Third, of course we would have wanted to win, but we have all year. I want to thank everyone that supports me, NAPA, Bill McAnally, everyone on this racecar. It takes everybody to be here. We had a great car here tonight and we’re going to move on to Colorado.”