Jake Garcia Surges Late to Win 13th Annual Georgia Summer Nationals

Jake Garcia is currently in the middle of his first appearance in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Playoffs, but that hasn’t stopped the Monroe, Georgia-native from returning to his roots for some Super Late Model racing at Cordele Motor Speedway.

The 20-year-old driver recorded a respectable third-place finish in Friday’s 75-lap feature event, which was won by Bubba Pollard, but on Saturday night, the FR8 Racing driver came back with a vengeance at the three-eighths-mile racetrack.

Saturday’s Georgia Summer Nationals 125 was a tale of two (or maybe even three) races.

Polesitter Michael Atwell led the opening 14 laps of the 125-lap contest at Cordele, until Late Model standout Jake Finch took over the lead, dominating the first half of the event, as the field settled in until the competition caution, which came after the field ran 60 consecutive laps.

At the halfway point, Colin Allman made a ballsy three-wide move for the race lead against Atwell and Finch, surging into the race lead and establishing himself as the driver to beat as the later stages of the feature event unfolded.

While Allman was taking over the race lead, Garcia also made a fantastic run through the pack, jumping from seventh to third in a mere matter of laps, and began to set his sights on the race leader and a victory in his home state.

Additional cautions were displayed in the final 40 laps of Saturday’s event, first for a mechanical issue for Bubba Pollard (who was running inside the top five at the time), and then for a spin by Jett Noland with 29 laps remaining.

Garcia became a force to be reckoned with in the late laps, surging around the outside to take over the race lead, after a side-by-side battle for the lead that lasted in excess of five circuits around the three-eighths-mile oval.

The full-time NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series driver took the lead with 25 laps remaining, and didn’t look back, pulling away to an advantage of two seconds at the end of the race to collect the victory over Allman.

“We finished third last night, and that isn’t what we wanted. Want to thank all of my FR8 Racing for doing a good job today and getting the car better and making the right adjustments, that way, tonight we weren’t fighting the same things we were yesterday,” said Garcia. “It’s pretty cool to be able to do this. Pretty excited with this result, we don’t come to these all the time, so it’s pretty cool to get a win.”

Colin Allman took a second-place finish on the evening, coming up short to Garcia. However, considering the No. 67 finished ninth in Friday’s 75-lap feature, and had himself and one crew member to completely switch the setup, the finish was a huge one for the driver.

“My car was turning off the bottom of [Turn] two really well, and [Jake Finch and Michael Atwell] both kind of washed up and it left an opportunity, and I saw it as my opportunity to get clean air and go,” said Allman. “You don’t get many race cars like we do tonight, I mean this thing was hooked up, and unfortunately we just checked the stagger and we lost stagger that last caution that [Jake Garcia] got by us, but the car was really good tonight.”

Johnny Sauter had a abhorrent run in Friday’s 75-lap feature, and qualified second-to-last in Saturday’s event, but slowly and methodically worked his way through the pack to record a solid third-place finish for Wauters Motorsports.

“I thought we had a great car [on Thursday], and yesterday was not so great, so we pretty much changed as much stuff as… you really don’t want to, but we had it here so we changed a bunch of stuff this morning, and then qualifying I thought we were in big trouble, the car got real tight – maybe I overdrive it or whatever – but just couldn’t pin the bottom and obviously qualified second-to-last,” said Sauter. “That’s a lot of fun when you can drive from the back to the front like that, and restarts were really helping me out, I could really pin the bottom of two there on those restarts and get three-wide and get a lot of spots there.”

Michael Atwell finished fourth from the pole, with Nelson Motorsports driver Gavan Boschele rounding out the top-five. Jake Finch came home sixth, with Matthew Craig, Daniel Webster, Stephen Nasse, and Dylan Fetcho rounding out the top-10.

Bubba Pollard, winner of Friday’s 75-lap feature, finished 15th after a mechanical issue relegated him to an early end.

-- Photo Credit: Tyler Sontag

Race Results: Georgia Summer Nationals 125