AVONDALE, Ariz. — For the second time in four NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series races in 2026, Jordan Anderson Racing scored a pair of top-10 finishes, with the latest edition coming March 7 at Phoenix Raceway.
Jeb Burton came home seventh, a place ahead of Rajah Caruth, who took the checkers in eighth.
Team owner Jordan Anderson was ebullient post-race.
“Yeah, I had tears in my eyes that last lap, I’m almost speechless,” Anderson told Frontstretch. “It takes a village. Everybody on this team works so hard. It’s a team effort between the effort that Jeb has put in, Blaine [Perkins] has put in, having Rajah come in and his first race [of the season with the team] was a top 10.”
JAR also scored two top-10 efforts at Daytona International Speedway to start the season, but Anderson was quick to point out tonight was different.
“This isn’t a superspeedway race,” he said. “This was a hard-earned, hard-fought short track, intermediate, whatever you wanna call Phoenix. Phoenix is Phoenix, man.
“This is cool, two top 10s for our organization, a lot of smiles and a big morale boost. The [No.] 32 car has finished top 10 every single race this year. I think that’s four in a row. That’s awesome for our team.”
Burton continued the theme of excitement.
“Yeah, the guys really brought a fast car, and I just appreciate them working really hard,” he said. “We got stage points in both stages and a P7. I feel like we’re a seventh- to a fifth-place car all night, and it’s good for us to get the result.
“We’ve had really fast cars this year, and our team just hadn’t got the results. So it’s good momentum built for us this weekend. We were fastest in practice, ninth in qualifying and seventh in the race and got stage points in both stages.”
Caruth was also delighted with his eighth-place finish, his third top 10 of the season — the other two coming in JR Motorsports’ No. 88.
“Yeah, I think we were definitely chasing the balance the first part of the race, bu, really by the start of stage three we got into a space where I felt like I could get the most out of it and we were able to gain a lot of track position,” Caruth said. “I would have liked to have gotten stage points earlier, but I think with how that all played out with running long and how much ground we were making up before the stop, pitting later, so we had a tire advantage it just kind of worked out great in our favor. So yeah, super proud of the effort.”
JAR expanded to three full-time entries in 2026, and coupled with the technical alliance with Richard Childress Racing that was announced at the end of 2025, it’s clear both changes are paying dividends along of course with the effort.
“Just a lot of hard work and working with Chevrolet and everybody there and then also RCR, we’re just taking every inch of information we can,” Burton said. “We got really smart people on our little team. We just need to keep getting some information and the tools. I know I can drive it and my guys can put it together.”
“We’re finally getting the dots to connect here, and we’ve been so close,” Anderson added. “You go back and look at the stats, we’ve qualified like 10th to 15th a lot here at Phoenix, and to see it all kind of come together is just so big for us. So it’s a great opportunity for us to see it all come together.”
JAR departs Phoenix with the No. 32, also driven by Ross Chastain and Anderson himself so far this season, eighth in owner’s points, while Burton’s No. 27 is 13th. Its third car, Perkins’ No. 31, sits 20th.
Danny Peters has written for Frontstretch since 2006. An English transplant living in San Francisco, by way of New York City, he’s had an award-winning marketing career with some of the biggest companies sponsoring sports. Working with racers all over the country, his freelance writing has even reached outside the world of racing to include movie screenplays.