Jake Garcia Charges to World Crown 300 Coronation at Cordele

From Martinsville, Virginia, to Cordele, Georgia, to a place in history.

Jake Garcia won Saturday's Cohen Law Group World Crown 300 presented by Noland's Roofing at Cordele Motor Speedway, joining a prestigious list of winners in the 30th running of the event.

While most competitors in Saturday's event spent time at Cordele practicing on Friday to prepare for the marquee race, Garcia was racing at Martinsville Speedway in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series. Still, Garcia was up to the task, charging to a $42,500 victory.

After 28 World Crowns at another Georgia facility, Gresham Motorsports Park between 1983 and 2014, the event returned at Cordele one year ago. Now back on the Late Model calendar, Garcia was especially pleased to keep the crown in his home state of Georgia.

"Definitely a really big payday," said Garcia in victory lane. "To win the World Crown as a Georgia native, that's really special. Georgia drivers seem to do good here, and I'm proud of that as well.

"I'm just really proud of all our guys, Fr8 Racing for giving me an awesome car. We made some good adjustments throughout the race to get us a little better and improve on what we struggled with in that second run. We were really fast at the end."

Regardless of practice time on Friday, every driver in the field faced a constantly changing Cordele Motor Speedway. While the sun was out during Saturday's final practice and qualifying session, drivers raced on a cooler track at nighttime in the 300-lap event.

Garcia qualified 15th, offering an initial setback. However, his No. 35 boasted plenty of long run speed, moving to the lead within the first 90 laps of the race.

"Everything was different between qualifying and the race," said Garcia. "Different trend and speed. We've got to work on our qualifying, for sure. We've always struggled out here with starting well, but our race was really good."

Along with the $42,500 payday and the honor of a World Crown victory, Garcia leaves with momentum entering next week's NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series finale at Phoenix Raceway and a pair of crown jewel Super Late Model events to end the year.

"It's really, really good to get some momentum," said Garcia. "My last three races, between this and the truck have been really bad. It's good to get some confidence, get some momentum back. We'll have Phoenix next week in the truck and hopefully go to All American and Snowball Derby later this year. Maybe we can win one of those as well."

Garcia and runner-up finisher Colin Allman combined to lead nearly 200 of the race's 300 laps. Garcia took the lead from Allman for the final time on lap 267, after Allman dominated the middle stage of the race.

With fresh tires after a lap 223 caution, Allman quickly moved from fifth back into the lead. However, Garcia chased him down to reclaim the top spot with 33 laps remaining.

Reflecting on his runner-up finish, Allman said his car simply wouldn't turn as well as Garcia's when it mattered most.

"As good as the car was on that second set of tires, I thought we had a shot there," said Allman. "This thing was just a little tight the first run. We made an adjustment on the second set of tires. That thing was fast, man, it was on a rail. Then, we put a set of tires on and we were tighter than we were all night."

Allman chalked the difference up to the changing racing surface and not preparing accordingly on the final pit stop.

"I'm sure the track just rubbered up and we didn't make the right adjustments. We don't run very many pit stop races, so this is a learning curve for us. We made a small adjustment trying to free it up a little bit, but we didn't want to go too far. We didn't go enough."

Bubba Pollard, racing while recovering from a broken hand suffered during the ASA STARS National Tour Glass City 200, finished third. His trademark patience put him in position for a late-race charge. However, losing two laps after an ignition box issue put the five-time SpeedFest winner on the back foot early.

"We were just kind of sitting there, just riding," said Pollard. "It's a long race, seeing what everybody had. Then the ignition box out, and everything changes. It just puts you behind, gets you off your game, puts you in dirty air and traffic. It's hard to maneuver.

"We learned what we needed. Right there at the end, we just needed that track position on that last pit stop to put us up there to race with those guys. They were better than we were on the short run. We could level off the longer we ran there. We just needed the track position."

Johnny Sauter finished fourth, with Kulwicki Driver Development Program Finalist Seth Christensen rounding out the top five.

With the victory, Garcia joins a list of racers including the likes of Dick Trickle, Darrell Waltrip and Chase Elliott on the register of World Crown winners. Other short track heroes who have won the event include Mike Eddy, Gary Balough, Freddie Query, Rich Bickle, Bobby Gill, and Ronnie Sanders.

Saturday's World Crown 300 was a non-points event for the ASA Southern Super Series. Two points races remain for the series in November. The ASA Southern Super Series first heads to Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway for the All American 400, co-sanctioned by the ASA STARS National Tour on November 9. Garcia won last year's edition of the All American 400.

One week later, the series goes to New Smyrna Speedway for its season finale in the Florida Governor's Cup.

-Photo credit: Jason Reasin/Cordele Motor Speedway

Cohen Law Group World Crown 300 Unofficial Results