RICHMOND, Va. — Jake Garcia rode the swells of an undulating regular season in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, flashing some pole-winning speed near its midpoint but suffering setbacks later that made his playoff fate an uncertain one. A crash-plagued day at Pocono in June was followed by a pair of lap-down finishes at Lime Rock and Indianapolis Raceway Park. He was outside the postseason picture until Stewart Friesen’s injury and loss of playoff eligibility opened an avenue.
Friday night at Richmond Raceway, Garcia had reason for some relief.
“We’re in now, so that’s all that matters,” Garcia said from pit road at Richmond Raceway. “There were some points in the season where we were sixth or seventh in points. But either way, we’re in and we’ll have a shot to compete for a championship.”
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Garcia finished seventh in Friday night’s eero 250, locking up the last of 10 spots in the postseason field by 19 points over ThorSport Racing teammate Ben Rhodes, a two-time series champion. Corey Heim surged to his seventh win of the year to deny a new regular-season winner from swooping in for a last-minute clincher from below the playoff bubble. Gio Ruggerio came the closest to converting that goal, lining up third on the final restart after a fortunate late-race caution but fading to sixth at the checkered flag.
Through it all, Garcia kept close tabs on his nearest playoff competitors, and the 20-year-old driver padded his margin by placing ninth and second in the stages.
“I was paying attention to that, especially after we had two good first stages and built a cushion,” Garcia said. “At that point, it was just a matter of managing our gap and just making sure there was no possible way we could crash. And so, you know, I think we did a good job at that. I tried my best to run a smart race after we had a little bit of a cushion, and just get this thing in the playoffs.”
Rhodes entered Friday’s race with an 11-point deficit relative to the elimination line. He started 17th to Garcia’s eighth, but erred on his first pit stop of the night, breezing past his stall during the Stage 1 intermission. Rhodes restarted 11th, and his team broke ranks on strategy by bolting on fresh tires when a caution flag flew early in the stage. Another quick yellow offset the No. 99 Ford team’s edge, and no other caution periods provided much relief. Rhodes ultimately wound up eighth — one spot behind Garcia.
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Rhodes cited a pair of regular-season races that could have helped turn the outcome — a power-steering failure at Rockingham; a Lap 1 crash with Ruggiero at Homestead — but indicated that more competitive speed could have cured all.
“It just seems like we need a little bit more pace right now,” Rhodes said. “You can point your finger at like anything, right? But obviously, some of those low-hanging-fruit items, the mechanical issues that we had earlier on, that would have changed the story for tonight. But yeah, the pace. We’ve got to find that still. We’ve had moments of brilliance throughout the year, same with my teammates, but we need that consistent speed that some of our competitors have, like obviously, the 11 truck (Heim).”
Ruggiero entered with a 21-point gap below the elimination barrier, and he faced an uphill path from the outset. He started last in the 35-truck field after a broken rear hub on his No. 17 Tricon Garage Toyota kept him from posting a qualifying lap.
He worked his way up the leaderboard, then caught a beneficial break on the final caution flag for an incident with Ty Majeski and teammate Matt Crafton that left him as one of few drivers on the lead lap. He restarted third, but was among the others who could not catch Heim.
“Just a tough ending to a hard-fought day,” Ruggiero said. “Just had some problems with the truck in practice and didn’t get to qualify and struggled with the truck a little bit there in the race. It’s always harder when you don’t have track position, so I thought I did a good job coming through the field. My pit crew did a great job on our stops, made up a couple spots each time, I think, on pit road there and helped me get to the front and drove it to second place there at the end. I just couldn’t do nothing with it. Didn’t have the speed and didn’t have the drive off to keep up with the 11 and the 7 (Sammy Smith), so just kind of burnt the tires up trying to keep up with them there. Fell back a little bit at the end and fell short, but we’ll go on to the next one and hopefully be able to compete for the win.”