Garcia Brings Career-High Momentum to IRP
White Hot … Jake Garcia is white hot entering his second-career NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series (NCTS) start at Indianapolis Raceway Park (IRP) on Friday night. He debuted a white Quanta Services paint scheme at Richmond Raceway two weeks ago and wheeled it to a career best fourth-place finish. The 18-year-old Georgian has shown flashes of brilliance throughout his impressive rookie season, and his second top-five finish of the season was another glimpse of that. Garcia also recently delivered a season-best front row qualifying effort at Pocono Raceway last month and looks to continue his white-hot streak in his return to IRP.
In Familiar Territory … Garcia hasn’t had a chance to visit many repeat venues in his 15 starts this season, but he’s made the most of the few opportunities in familiar territory. IRP will be just the third race this season where he has previous NCTS experience, but he’s excelled in the two previous races at repeat venues. Garcia notched a 10th-place finish at World Wide Technology Raceway on June 3rd and collected his aforementioned career-best fourth at Richmond two weeks ago after having raced at both tracks in 2022. His familiarity with IRP extends back to September 2019 when he won the CRA All-Stars Fall Brawl event. He’ll look to continue his recent hot streak on Friday night and replicate his winning ways at IRP to pursue his first victory in NCTS competition.
Season to Date … Through the 16-race regular season, Garcia put up a valiant effort in his rookie campaign to make the playoffs despite making only 15 starts. He’s earned two top-five and seven top-10 finishes and sits second in the Rookie of the Year standings with an average finish of 14.5. Garcia enters IRP 15th in the championship standings but can finish as high as 11th over the final seven races.
Tune In … FOX Sports 1 has live coverage from IRP on Friday beginning with practice and qualifying at 3:30 p.m. ET. Coverage continues with NASCAR Raceday at 8:00 p.m. ET followed by the green flag at 9:00 p.m. ET on FS1. Stay connected with the No. 35 Quanta Services team by following @BMR_NASCAR on Twitter, @bmrnascar on Instagram, and Bill McAnally Racing on Facebook.
Jake Garcia Quote:
On his recent momentum entering IRP:
“To get at top-five at Richmond felt great. That was probably the best complete weekend we’ve put together with our Quanta Services Chevrolet this season. It felt great to race in and around the top-five all night and we want to do the same thing this week at IRP. It’s a fun but challenging place. There are some different options with the variable banking but can make it difficult to pass too. Hopefully we can qualify well again like we have been recently and that’ll give us a good opportunity to race towards the front all night.”