By: Zach Catanzareti, Staff Writer
Jordan Anderson is in the midst of his second full-time season as an owner in the Gander Outdoors Truck Series, running the train for his Jordan Anderson Racing No. 3 Chevrolet in 2019.
And though improvement is in the pipeline for the 27-year-old South Carolina native, the year started off with a bang, suffering the hardest hit of his career at Daytona in February.
“We had a top five, a really good run going,” Anderson told Kickin’ The Tires. “So, I said, ‘Hey let’s jump to the high side and see what we can do.’ We were put in a bad spot and ended up crashed down there.”
Indeed, Andersons No. 3 stuffed the Turn 4 wall, destroying what was the team’s only superspeedway truck for 2019.
Unlike 2018, where Anderson scored top-10 finish to start the year at Daytona, this season started with a major hole.
“It was a big setback for us,” he said. “We got the report back, it was up around 30 g’s in that crash. It was the hardest hit I’ve ever had. Everything on the safety side did its job, the HANS, my seat.
“That was our only superspeedway truck. Now, we have to plan for Talladega in the fall and plan out what we’re going to do. That truck was totaled, it bent the center section on it.
“We’re still in that growing phase of keeping the truck clean and stay out of trouble.”
Surpassing 10,000 laps run in his Truck Series career two races ago at Las Vegas, Anderson has gathered experience to know how to handle a comeback. Finishing 19th, 21st and 26th in the three races following the Daytona crash, Anderson knows where to place his expectations in the competitive series.
“We know what our budget looks like,” he said. “We want to make sure we’re staying in the green and keeping the guys working. We try to look far ahead to November, we want to keep the guys employed for the winter.”
That blue-collar approach to his team is why Anderson believes people follow himself and his team closely online.
“That’s why so many people can relate to us on social media,” he said. “Small businesses are really big in our country. They’re really the lifeblood of so many families. That’s what our race team is — it’s a small business that’s growing and we’ve got to keep things in perspective.
“We know where we were last year. If we came to a track we finished 20th at last year, we can say we finished 15th this year. We’re benchmarking ourselves from where we were last year to where we are this year.”
Though Anderson wants to win as much as the next driver, his goals for improvement stand in realism.
“The goal for us is to become a consistent 15th-to-20th-place team this year,” he said. “It’s so easy to get caught on where everyone else is running. That’s when things usually don’t go too well for us.
“That’s where we have to figure out that balance. Being smaller, we’re faster, so now we’re racing these guys with more budgets and cars than us. If you put yourself consistently in the top 15, sometimes things happen and you can put yourself in the top 10.”
Sitting 17th in points with plenty of racing ahead, Anderson and team are committed to turn short-term struggle into long-term success.
“It’s so easy to get frustrated when you want to be bigger turning quick,” he said. “As the quote goes: ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day.’ Building a race team does take time. We’re just enjoying the journey.”