BRISTOL, Tenn. – Both Jake Garcia and Chandler Smith were able to return to Bristol Motor Speedway’s pit road post-race after the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series 250-lap feature on Sept. 11, but neither one of them had much to celebrate.
Both Smith and Garcia were the unlucky two drivers that suffered from mechanical malfunctions during the Bristol feature out of all 10 playoff drivers. As a result, both teams are now below the postseason cutline with only one race left in the series’ first round.
“It was an immediate sense of dread, sadness and frustration, all those things,” Garcia told Frontstretch. “Hate it for all the guys. They brought me a super fast truck and did a really good job all day throughout practice to get us better.”
For Smith, the issues began early. In the first stage, in fact.
It was early on when the driver of the No. 38 Ford began to feel his truck feeling underpowered. After multiple laps of reporting the issue on the radio, he came to pit road where the crew opened the hood and looked underneath.
“We fired back off a restart, it was really good and was running the top and was passing … for third or fourth or something like that,” Smith told Frontstretch. “And when I was around the top, just as I was on the outside whoever that was, it just cut out. Just completely stopped and then went back, and I was like, ‘Oh that’s weird. It’s probably a fuel pickup,’ then I cleared the guy, went to the bottom, and it wasn’t really doing it as much, but when back markers and stuff forced me back up top, well I went back up top and started doing it again.”
Oddly enough, they didn’t find much at first glance, and the Front Row Motorsports entry returned to the half-mile circuit a few laps down.
However, the issues continued, and Smith had no choice but to return to pit road a second time. At a short track like Bristol, pitting under green can put you a few laps down, pitting twice will end your night.
“We came in,” Smith continued. “Changed ECUs, went back out, didn’t make a rat’s butt. I’m pretty sure what it was, is there was this little sensor that connects some part of the engine, and it’s done.
“I don’t think it was the ECU. I think it was a little sensor that connects to the engine and the high loads here in Bristol, which doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, and I don’t know for sure that this is what it was.”
Smith returned to the track a whopping 11 laps down before being told he had to return a third time for a penalty.
At the end of the night, Smith was 14 laps down and had to settle for a 30th-place finish with a whole 24 points between he and playoff sanctuary. But for a driver like Smith, who already has two wins in 2025 with both of them coming from short tracks, going to a short track-like circuit like New Hampshire Motor Speedway as a cutoff race doesn’t worry him.
“I’m confident regardless of what the outcome is in New Hampshire,” Smith said. “What we’ve been able to accomplish with this 38 team this year, with what we came in and how late this deal came about, the trucks that we inherited, how fast everybody got assembled together, no matter what happens, we want to go to the Championship 4. That’s the goal.”
But it might worry a driver like Garcia, who is now 14 points behind the cutline.
The ThorSport Racing driver was actually having one of the best races of his Truck Series career. After winning his third career pole earlier on Thursday, the No. 13 rode in second for most of the first stage before overtaking playoff favorite Corey Heim for the lead in the closing laps of the segment. The Georgian not only took the lead but actually one the stage – the first of his career.
However, a bad pit stop and some following contact on pit road during the stage break saw him fall all the way to 11th under caution. After the restart, it only got worse.
The No. 13 started to feel his power steering fail. In moments, he fell like a rock through the field before heading to pit road.
That’s where he saw the power steering issue was more of a side effect, not a cause.
“First thing I noticed was the power steering went out,” Garcia recalled. “I thought that was the only problem. … I was just trying to diagnose the problem, ran it for about a lap before I realized how hot the water was getting, and then I had to pit and diagnosed the problem.
“It was a bolt on the motor that broke that we can’t control at all.”
Garcia brought his Ford behind the wall for a whole 28 laps before returning to the race shortly after. From then on, the 20-year-old could only limp around the half-mile track in 33rd hoping for any extra spots he could gain from drivers falling out of the race – an opportunity that never arrived.
Garcia and Smith now head to New Hampshire with their work cut out for them. However, with a deficit of only 14 and 24, respectfully, pointing their ways into the Round of 8 is not as farfetched as it may seem.
After all, a similar fate of mechanical failure could happen to someone above the cut line as well.
“We’ll have to play it by ear,” Garcia said. “Sucks being behind in these situations, but really excited about what we brought today, and I think there’s some positives to look at even though it was so heartbreaking.”
Dalton Hopkins began writing for Frontstretch in April 2021. Currently, he is the lead writer for the weekly Thinkin' Out Loud column, co-host of the Frontstretch Happy Hour podcast, and one of our lead reporters. Beforehand, he wrote for IMSA shortly after graduating from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in 2019. Simultaneously, he also serves as a Captain in the US Army.
Follow Dalton on Twitter @PitLaneCPT