Jake Garcia Rockets To Rockingham Truck Series Pole... Again

Jake Garcia knows what it takes to go fast around the 0.940-mile Rockingham Speedway for a single lap, that can't be denied. On Friday afternoon, Garcia kept his qualifying record perfect at the iconic North Carolina track with a pole-winning run behind the wheel of the No. 98 ThorSport Racing Ford F-150.

In turning a lap time of 21.893 seconds (154.570 mph), Garcia was able to take his second consecutive pole position in the Black's Tire 200 at Rockingham Speedway.

The lap time, which was more than two-tenths-of-a-second better than the competition, broke Garcia's own track qualifying record from a season ago, something he was proud to achieve on Friday.

"I mean, that's super cool to break my record from last year," Garcia explained. "Really proud of my guys. I felt like we struggled with some things in practice, and slowly chipped away at our truck in the time we did have in practice today, and got it good for qualifying."

After securing the pole last season, the now 21-year-old driver was able to keep himself near the front of the field and came home with a career-best second-place finish, as he crossed the finish line behind Tyler Ankrum, who ended a long winless drought.

Garcia hopes he can have another smooth race day at Rockingham on Friday afternoon.

"Just hopefully we can have a smooth race today and execute, and hopefully keep it out front," Garcia said.

The young native of Monroe, Georgia, will be joined on the front row by Tanner Gray, the driver of the No. 15 TRICON Garage Toyota Tundra TRD Pro.

Gray's runner-up qualifying effort marks his first front row starting spot since the 11th race of last season, which came at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Like Garcia, the New Mexico native is still seeking his first career NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series win.

Gray comes into this weekend's race with 146 starts under his belt.

Kaden Honeycutt, the second-place driver in the series point standings heading into the weekend, will start Friday's event from the third spot, while Cole Butcher and Layne Riggs rounded out the top-five qualifiers.

Chandler Smith, the series points leader, suffered an issue of some kind with his truck during his qualifying lap, and was only able to muster a 33rd-place qualifying effort. Fortunately, Smith was able to keep from crashing his truck, and his team is now looking it over before pushing him to the grid for Friday's race.

With 38 trucks vying for just 36 spots in the starting lineup, two drivers were not able to advance to the starting lineup for the Black's Tire 200. Justin Carroll and Jonathan Shafer were the two drivers, who failed to qualify for the race.

Carroll turned a lap time of 23.757 seconds in qualifying, while Shafer saw his bid to advance to the race end in a crash during the opening lap of Friday's practice session.

Official Black's Tire 200 Starting Lineup

1. 98-Jake Garcia
2. 15-Tanner Gray
3. 11-Kaden Honeycutt
4. 13-Cole Butcher
5. 34-Layne Riggs
6. 88-Ty Majeski
7. 1-Corey Heim
8. 42-Parker Eatmon
9. 45-Landen Lewis
10. 17-Gio Ruggiero
11. 12-Brenden Queen
12. 44-Andres Perez De Lara
13. 18-Tyler Ankrum
14. 9-Grant Enfinger
15. 19-Daniel Hemric
16. 77-Carson Hocevar
17. 16-Justin Haley
18. 26-Dawson Sutton
19. 52-Stewart Friesen
20. 81-Kris Wright
21. 2-Luke Baldwin
22. 91-Christian Eckes
23. 10-Corey LaJoie
24. 7-Sammy Smith
25. 99-Ben Rhodes
26. 14-Mini Tyrrell
27. 4-Connor Hall
28. 25-Ty Dillon
29. 5-Adam Andretti
30. 62-Michael Christopher Jr.
31. 56-Timmy Hill
32. 33-Frankie Muniz
33. 38-Chandler Smith
34. 93-Caleb Costner
35. 22-Clayton Green
36. 76-Spencer Boyd
DNQ 90-Justin Carroll
DNQ 69-Jonathan Shafer