Garcia Adds Another Allen Turner PLM Win
One week removed from his first-career Super Late Model triumph in the Southern Super Series’ Georgia Summer Nationals at Crisp Motorsports Park, Jake Garcia tallied his second Allen Turner Pro Late Model win of 2021 at Five Flags Speedway.
uite possibly the hottest driver this summer in Southeast Late Model competition is Georgia’s Jake Garcia.
One week removed from his first-career Super Late Model triumph in the Southern Super Series’ Georgia Summer Nationals at Crisp Motorsports Park, the 16-year-old tallied his second Allen Turner Pro Late Model win of 2021 at Five Flags Speedway.
Along with that Southern Super Series win, Garcia has now won the last two Allen Turner Pro Late Model events, as well as three of the last four races in Montgomery Motor Speedway’s Show Me the Money Pro Late Model Series. He will also carry the points lead in the Deep South Crane Blizzard Series Night of Champions on October 2.
Perhaps the scariest notion is that Garcia believes there’s room for even more improvement.
It feels really good. Three in a row doesn’t happen that often, so it feels really good. I’m proud of all my guys and everything they’ve done. Every week we come and get the car better, work on some stuff and improve. Hopefully we’ll keep improving and keep getting some wins
“That win at Cordele was pretty big, and this is also big.”
Garcia took the lead from Jett Noland on a lap 51 restart and never looked back, pulling away and winning by 1.5 seconds over defending Allen Turner Pro Late Model champion Chris Davidson.
Davidson had his own interesting night, pitting for adjustments at the caution near the halfway mark of the 100-lap feature for an incident involving Matt Craig. Adjustments during that stop propelled Davidson to surge through the field.
“We passed everyone that was in front of us except for one,” said Davison. “The car was really good. We made a stop, made a minor adjustment, it was really tight. It was fun. A lot of green-flag laps makes it a good race, usually.
“We had a vibration in the right-front, it got pretty bad. We got that corrected, put a pound of air in the tires and went back to racing.”
John Bolen continued a strong season of his own with a third-place finish on Friday night.
“All the guys have put a lot of hard work in, a lot of hours. We’ve changed a lot of stuff trying to pick up some pace going into the Derby, and it’s starting to pay off.”
Both the Blizzard Series and Allen Turner Pro Late Model Series will crown champions on Saturday, October 2 at Five Flags Speedway. That event also marks the finale for the Southern Super Series, where Stephen Nasse currently leads Garcia by eight points.
Before the Late Models return to action at Five Flags Speedway, there will be two events for Five Flags’ local racing divisions, scheduled for September 3 and September 18. The latter of those two dates will determine champions for the track’s Outlaws, Pure Stocks, Sportsmen and Pro Truck competitors.
After October 2’s Late Model Night of Champions, all eyes will be on the 54th Annual Snowball Derby. The Snowball Derby Preview is slated for November 20, with the Snowball Derby taking place on December 2-5.
-Story by: Zach Evans, Speed51 Director of Digital Content – Twitter: @ztevans
-Photo credit: Speed51 Photo