Wood Enters Kern County Fighting for the Top Spot
Venue: Kevin Harvick’s Kern County Raceway Park
Event: MMI Oil Workers 150 presented by the West Coast Stock Car Hall of Fame
Date: Saturday, April 20
Location: Bakersfield, CA
Track Description: 0.5-mile tri oval
Distance: 150 laps, 75 miles (11:15 p.m. ET, www.FloRacing.com)
Fighting for the Top … Jack Wood enters the second race of the ARCA Menards Series West (AMSW) campaign at Kevin Harvick’s Kern County Raceway Park (KCRP) near the top of the championship standings. The driver of the No. 16 NAPA Auto Care is second in points among the drivers that are entered for Saturday’s showdown in Bakersfield, Calif after earning 37 points for a seventh-place finish in the season opener at Phoenix Raceway on March 8th. Wood is just two markers behind the defending champion Sean Hingorani as the tour restarts with 11 events remaining in the championship chase.
Loaded for Bear … Wood and the NAPA Auto Care team are loaded for bear heading to KCRP. The No. 16 team recently tested at the Bakersfield half mile following the first event of the season at Phoenix Raceway with his BMR teammate Eric Johnson Jr. Wood has one previous start in the AMSW at KCRP which resulted in a 10th-place finish in October 2020. Since the season opener, Wood tallied his best-career road course finish in the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series, a 13th-place effort at Circuit of the Americas, and made his first short track start of the season at Martinsville Speedway. He looks to parlay the recent test and experience into a winning effort on Saturday night.
BMR in Kern County … Bakersfield, Calif. has been a friendly destination for BMR over the years. Since 2016, BMR has collected six race wins at the high-speed half mile. All six of those victories were in succession between current NASCAR Cup Series driver Todd Gilliland (two) and Derek Kraus (four) from 2016-2019. Wood hopes to become the fifth BMR driver to claim a checkered flag in Bakersfield, Calif. as former AMSW champions Sean Woodside and Brendan Gaughan each tallied victories at KCRP’s predecessor Mesa Marin Speedway in 1999 and 2000, respectively.
Tune In … The second event of the AMSW season can be streamed live on FloRacing (www.floracing.com) at 11:15 p.m. ET on Saturday night. Audio coverage is also available on www.ARCARacing.com. Stay connected with the No. 16 NAPA Auto Care team by following @BMR_NASCAR on Twitter, @bmrnascar on Instagram, and Bill McAnally Racing on Facebook.
Jack Wood Quote:
On resuming the AMSW season:
“I’m excited to get back to California for what I would call the first true west race of the year. We tested our NAPA Auto Care Chevrolet at Kern County a few weeks ago after Phoenix and I think everybody felt pretty good about where we ended up. We still have a little more work to do, but I think we have a good direction to hopefully go race for the win on Saturday and make a run at this championship.”