Driver-Owner Jordan Anderson Shares Perspective & Logistics of Growing Xfinity Team

After starting Jordan Anderson Racing as a NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series team in 2018, Jordan Anderson and his team have since moved on to become a two-car NASCAR Xfinity Series team, with an occasional appearance of a third car.

In the time between, JAR has faced its own share of triumph and misfortune in both series, leading Anderson to pool the team’s resources exclusively into the Xfinity program.

The team won its first-ever race in 2023 with Jeb Burton at Talladega Superspeedway and won two poles with Parker Retzlaff this year, coming at Richmond Raceway and Martinsville Speedway.

Before the Talladega race in October, Frontstretch caught up with Anderson to discuss his team’s growth in the Xfinity Series, reflect on better speed this season and look to how the team might keep moving up in 2025.

Caleb Barnes, Frontstretch: I just wanted to ask about the growth of the team in general. I know starting in the Truck Series, we’ll start with that. But then you moved to the Xfinity Series, kind of had a toe in both waters and now two full-time cars as well as running the No. 32. Why did you decide to make that move from the Truck to the Xfinity Series?

Anderson: For us, it was kind of an idea that I thought when we first did it that we could do both. So if you go back and look at 2021, we tried to run — pretty much we ran the full season in the Trucks, and we had what happened with the Xfinity car with the rain delay.

We came back and ran the rest of the year once we got [in] the top 40 [in owner points]. It made sense on paper, and then once we started in ’22, I ran the first handful of races trying to do both, and they were just too different.

The Trucks run Ilmors, they were running different truck arms, different housings, obviously the steel bodies over there [in Xfinity], so there wasn’t a lot that made sense to go back and forth for us. So I said, ‘You know what, I’ve got two teams here.’

I looked at everything on paper and said, ‘Which one has got the most viable opportunity to be successful in the future.’ At the time we had Myatt [Snider] running for us full time, and I said, ‘This is where our focus needs to be.’ So, [we] parked the truck, sold off all of our trucks we had that year and put everything back in the Xfinity team and just kind of doubled down [and] said, ‘This is where we’re going to go.’

We made our bed there, and thankfully it’s been a good decision that we made. We’ve been very fortunate with good drivers and good teams. We doubled up with two cars in 2023. We’ve had Jeb [Burton] and Parker [Retzlaff] the last two years. It’s been great working with those guys.

They’ve not only been good drivers, but they’ve added a lot of feedback. They’ve had some good partners that have allowed us to grow the team and build good inventory. We’ve had a good relationship with Chevrolet that’s helped a lot on that front.

I do miss the Truck Series. Though they were fun to race and had a blast running those for the years we did, but for the long-term growth of our team and the viability of it, it made sense to be in this garage area. Hopefully, we’ll just continue to keep growing and see what the future holds.

Barnes: Last year, you had the win at Talladega and competed in the Xfinity Series playoffs. We heard this year with the Wood Brothers making it, how big of a deal that was for them to just finish top 16 in points and the payout. Here in the Xfinity Series, how big of a deal was that last year making the Xfinity playoffs?

Anderson: For us, it was a great opportunity to say, ‘Hey, we’re in the playoffs.’ Financially, it wasn’t much difference to go from, you know, Xfinity was 12. I think we would have finished 15th that year, so it wasn’t honestly a huge bump to go from 15th to 12th, but just the prestige that came with saying, ‘Hey, you know, we made the playoffs. This is a new team, our first time doing it.

JEB BURTON AND JORDAN ANDERSON RACING WIN AT TALLADEGA! pic.twitter.com/z3hEYuSwog

— FOX: NASCAR (@NASCARONFOX) April 22, 2023

That was a really cool opportunity for us to make that jump and gave us some good momentum in the offseason. This year has been one of the seasons where — I don’t really believe in luck — but we’ve had a lot of really good speed with maybe not the results to show for it.

I feel like internally as a team we’ve got a lot more depth. We bought a Romer arm over the offseason, so we’re measuring a lot of our parts. Our stuff is getting closer. We spend a lot of time on the sim trying to figure out some of that stuff. In the back end of it, I think we’re getting better as a team.

Just hopefully, with six to go here in the season, we can start knocking off some good results to show how hard our guys have been working back at the shop. I do feel like a lot of the stuff we’ve been doing the last month or two will start to hopefully show here at the end of the year to kind of get our season turned around. But more importantly, kind of parlay that into next year to start off next year firing on all eight cylinders.

Barnes: As you look back over the course of this season, there still have been some highs. But like you mentioned, just seeing the speed that is there as well as having Jeb and Parker back and then having that No. 32 car run, I know Austin Green has had some great runs. Where are you at with evaluating the season and the performances of what you’ve seen from the three different teams so far this year?

Anderson: Like I said, it’s been a great learning season for us. We’ve certainly built our notebook. As the series evolves, as other teams step up and we have to step up, it’s a constant battle to keep fighting to keep up to make sure we are moving forward and our stuff is getting better.

I think the biggest thing for us, I look back on the year, even going back to Richmond, getting our first pole with Parker, I mean, that was a huge, huge thing. I’ve got the pole flag hanging right underneath our first win flag in the shop. That was big for us. Jeb’s had a lot of good speed. To go run the road course, as Austin’s come in with his top fives and top 10s, that’s made our road course program better. It’s helped. You look at Parker’s stats this year on the road courses, he’s stepped his game up quite a bit, so it’s made that side of things a lot better.

You look at the speed that these guys have had, and to be able to be in contention. Looking at Parker last week, he drove up all the way to right outside of the top 10 before the pit road issue last week, so the speed is definitely there, and I think our guys have got some confidence that they can do it.

We’re learning, again, going back to some things in the shop that we’re doing and trying to grow, it’s kind of funny. You look at this garage area, you can race the team to be very competitive up until about, I’d say, 15th, because the top 15 teams are all Cup-affiliated in some shape, fashion or form.

We don’t have a technical alliance or anything like that. For us to make the next step up, it comes a bigger financial investment to say we’re going to keep chomping away at that. We’ve committed. My partner John Bommarito on the team, we’ve kind of looked at a five-year plan of this, of starting to pick and choose things that we can start investing in to not only be more financially responsible on that side of things, to be here for a long time to come, but to make our cars better in the long run and just be able to be better on that side of things.

It’s a little bit of moneyball to try to figure out how to make all that stuff work and make sure everything keeps clicking and say, ‘Hey, we’re moving up a little bit at a time to be better every year.’

Barnes: You’re mentioning some of these teams, like I look over your shoulder, there’s Sam Hunt Racing. We’ve got Young’s Motorsports here. They’ve been moving to the Xfinity Series, kind of following your trajectory, right? The Siegs, DGM. What is it about the Xfinity Series that allows some of these teams that don’t necessarily have the alliances to still flourish and to still do pretty well?

Anderson: I think the biggest thing is you’ve got a bigger variety of teams that exist on this side of the garage area, and it kind of hit me when I was at Bristol the other week. Me and some of the guys had drove up early to watch the ARCA and the Truck race at Bristol, just fans in the stands. We just were sitting there to spectate, and I’m looking down in the infield and the Truck Series, I think you’ve literally got four teams make up 22, 23 trucks, so you’ve got more than half the field coming from four teams, which is crazy to think they’re that big on that side.

Here [in Xfinity], you’ve obviously got some of your bigger teams, but you’ve got a bigger variety of teams on the last three-quarters of the field, and those guys can sneak in and have good runs.

I mean, everybody on this side of garage area has had some top fives, top 10s this year, where maybe that doesn’t exist on the Truck side. But you look at the Xfinity Series, I’ve thought they’ve done a great job with the motor package that exists here, the bodies that exist here, the tolerances a lot tighter. It comes on the team to say, ‘Hey, we’ve got to figure out [how] to make sure our stuff doesn’t break, make sure we’re there at the end of the race.’ Because the fields are getting a lot closer.

I mean you look at most weekends, there’s 20, 25 and there was a race earlier this year, I think there were 30, 30-plus cars that finished on the lead lap. That goes out to how tight the field is. I think that’s where you see a lot teams on this side of the garage area are able to flourish and succeed and make it work.

Hopefully, with The CW coming next year, we’re going to see more interest from partners. That’s one thing with me this weekend. We have Volpi who stepped on board to sponsor me at Daytona and here at Talladega, did a two-race deal with us. We’re talking about what we’re going to do next year. But there’s huge interest from a lot of our partners that are seeing The CW come in, that see the exposure and the value of stuff that want to continue to become involved in this side of the sport.

Barnes: You mentioned looking at things for next year. Have you gotten anything settled with drivers? Are you going to run the No. 32 more often or make it full time, bump up to three cars? I know that’s a lot. You have anything set in stone yet?

Anderson: Nothing full time for the third car. That’s an opportunity for me to race speedways and to help out, give some other drivers some opportunities where it makes sense. That will kind of stay our part-time R&D, all-star car, whatever you want to call it.

We’re working through all the details now. We’ll have two cars back full time next year for sure. The [Nos.] 27 and 31 will be back. We’re navigating through all that stuff right now. Silly Season is in full swing, so hopefully here in the next few weeks, we’ll have some stuff figured out. So we’re working on it. It’s coming, but it’s exciting. A lot of good stuff on the horizon for next year.

To hear the whole conversation, you can view the full video on Youtube.