Jake Garcia has a new title to add to his resume as of Monday morning.
It was far from a dominant performance from the 19-year old on Sunday. Garcia led only two laps on the day. But they were the most important two as he took home arguably the biggest Super Late Model win of his career.
Garcia spent much of the day hovering around the 10th position, but came to pit road for fresh tires on a late-race caution.
That ultimately proved to be the difference maker. With the help of fresh rubber, Garcia got a great launch on the green-white-checkered restart, snatching the lead away from Giovanni Ruggiero. The Georgian controlled the final two circuits from there to take the checkered flag.
He was quick to admit this ranks among his best achievements to date after the race.
“It’s definitely up there,” Garcia said. “I’ve had a lot of good runs, a lot of good wins. But this is definitely a crown jewel event against a really good field of racecar drivers.”
Rounding out the podium was polesitter Casey Roderick and Dawson Sutton, the latter having dominated the second half of the day.
Roderick was fast early but quickly faded after a restart on lap 61, running as far down as 19th around the halfway point. Much like Garcia, late race cautions allowed the veteran to battle back into the fight.
On the opposite end of things, Sutton may view the 2024 All American 400 as the one that got away. The Tennessee native led nearly every lap from lap 123 until 286, when the win slipped away on a restart.
Ruggiero seemed to have the win wrapped up on multiple occasions. He was the driver to steal the lead from Sutton late in the going and began to drive off into the sunset. But a crash with five laps to go between Albert Francis, Derek Thorn and Connor Okrzesik erased Ruggiero’s lead.
On the ensuing restart, Ruggiero jumped to the lead once again only for the yellow to fly in turn 3 of the final lap, as Jonathan Knee had come to a stop on the front stretch.
Under ASA rules the white flag doesn’t end the race, so the field was bunched back up one more time. Garcia got the better of Ruggiero on the ensuing restart, leaving his No. 22 to fade to fourth.
Rounding out the top five was Stephen Nasse, who also took advantage of fresh tires to have a late chance. It was an overall quiet day for Nasse, who spent much of the day…
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