RICHMOND, Va. — Jake Garcia‘s seventh-place finish in the eero 250 at Richmond Raceway on Friday night (Aug. 15) was enough to secure the 20-year-old the 10th and final spot in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series playoffs.
It marks the first time the third-year driver has qualified for the postseason.
“I’m relieved, I guess,” Garcia said. “I knew we had the speed to do it, but there were certainly some hairy moments there, and I had a good margin. So yeah, I’m just really, really proud of our guys for giving me fast trucks.”
Garcia scored more points in the regular season than Gio Ruggiero and ThorSport Racing teammate Ben Rhodes to get the last playoff spot. Both would’ve either needed to win or overcome a points deficit on Friday night to take the spot from Garcia, and he sealed the deal by finishing right between the two (Ruggiero was sixth, Rhodes eighth).
This whole 11th-hour points drama scenario was created when Stewart Friesen announced on Thursday (Aug. 14) he would not pursue a playoff waiver. Friesen earned a playoff spot earlier this season via a win at Michigan International Speedway but has not raced since a Super DIRTcar Series race wreck that caused multiple injuries. With Friesen giving up his playoff spot, it opened the door for another driver to make it in on points.
That moved Garcia above the playoff cut line by just 11 points over Rhodes and 21 over Ruggiero entering Richmond. The latter then began the race at a disadvantage. Ruggiero had to start at the rear after not making a qualifying run due to his team repairing a rear hub leak. That prevented the TRICON Garage driver from scoring any stage points on the night.
Rhodes chased down Garcia at the end of the first stage for 10th but was unable to get around his teammate, giving Garcia one more point to his buffer. The two then got on split strategies during a lap 90 caution, when Rhodes was one of the only drivers to pit for tires while Garcia stayed out.
Rhodes then carved through the field on the four fresh Goodyears to get all the way up to fourth, but then he got burned by a lap 109 caution. Rhodes had to stay out on tires with 12 laps of green flag action on them so he wouldn’t later be at a tire disadvantage, while Garcia pitted this time. This time, it was Garcia blowing by the rest of the field to finish stage 2 in second as Rhodes sunk down to seventh.
“Had those cautions fell a little differently, it would have been easier to get those 11 points that we needed tonight,” Rhodes said. “Stinks, right? Not good, but they play out like that sometimes. You get in these positions from the whole season.
“Obviously, our regular season didn’t go the way we wanted. There’s a few races that come to mind right away. Rockingham [Speedway], power steering failure like right away. [Homestead-Miami Speedway], we got caught up in a turn 1, lap 1 wreck from having to go to the back after a mechanical issue in qualifying. So there’s stuff like that that we could clean up, and I think it would have been a story tonight, but it’s just part of it.”
That made it so that, barring a new winner, Garcia only had to finish 19th or better in the final stage to make the playoffs. The Georgia native did what he needed to, finishing seventh. However, Ruggiero nearly stole the win and the playoff spot anyway.
A caution right in the middle of a pit cycle on lap 200 shuffled the field and put Ruggiero the closest he had been to the front all night. After a lot of beating, banging and hard racing among the leaders, Ruggiero and TRICON teammate Corey Heim emerged side-by-side for second. It looked like whoever won the battle between the two could potentially track down race leader Sammy Smith. Heim eventually cleared the No. 17 and eventually passed Smith for the race win while Ruggiero fell back to sixth, where he finished.
“I think clean air was gonna help me and not being side-by-side with the 11 [Heim], obviously,” Ruggiero told Frontstretch. “If I got by him, I’m sure that would have helped and could have played out differently. But he did a great job, and we raced each other pretty hard and pretty clean and obviously he got in front of me there and ran down the 7 [Smith] and got out front. So I just need to move on to the next one and be able to win.”
For Rhodes and Ruggiero, they’ll be left thinking for the rest of the season what could have been. But for Garcia, there’s now new life and a chance to get ThorSport a third championship in a row.
“Overall, we’re really proud of how fast our truck was and the speed we brought,” Garcia said. “If we can continue to bring that speed into the playoffs, we’ll be all right.
Michael Massie joined Frontstretch in 2017 and has served as the Content Director since 2020.
Massie, a Richmond, Va., native, has covered NASCAR, IndyCar, SRX and the CARS Tour. Outside of motorsports, the Virginia Tech grad and Green Bay Packers minority owner can be seen cheering on his beloved Hokies and Packers.