By: Zach Catanzareti, Staff Writer
One of the guaranteed closers of the Xfinity Series nearly struck again Saturday night at Daytona International Speedway. Jordan Anderson conserved early, rallied late and avoided the last-lap chaos across the line to come home seventh for his self-owned race team.
The result was his fourth career top-10 finish, all coming on the superspeedway of Daytona and Talladega Superspeedway.
“It really plays into my driving style,” Anderson said. “I’m not super aggressive early on in these races, I let the race fold out and feel the temperature and how the intensity is going to go.
“This is a weird one tonight. It was very tame early on, everybody gave a lot of give-and-take. There really wasn’t ‘The Big One’ like I thought there was going to be. At one point, I was riding around 32nd or 33rd waiting for it to happen.”
Though the ‘Big One’ didn’t occur, a number of ‘Little Ones’ did which punched Anderson’s No. 32 Chevrolet further up the leaderboard.
And when the field junked across the line while taking the white flag, Anderson squeezed past to score seventh.
But it didn’t just happen out of thin air without a certain level of planning.
“We just hung back all night and tried to take care of the car,” he said. “I just kept waiting for it to happen — I was maybe too conservative. I’m like, ‘We’re going to have to go!’
“I remember this race in 2021, it green the last 20 laps. It may end up being one of those races. So, I said let’s get up there in the pack. The holes kept closing up on me, I had nowhere to go. The car just wasn’t drive good through the tri-oval and the corners after I got the damage on the front end.”
It’s evident that superspeedway racing is Anderson’s personal wheelhouse. The 33-year-old is a two-time runner-up at Daytona in the Craftsman Truck Series [2020-2021] and now has an impressive three straight top 10s at Daytona in Xfinity.
“People can say what they want about speedway racing but it’s still a lot of strategy and you have to put yourself in a good spot,” he said. “Superspeedway racing does take a lot of patience.
“Chevy stepped up their involvement with us, they’re continuing to support us more and more. That’s been a huge backbone to making our team stronger.”
Through sponsor Volpi, Anderson will run multiple races in 2025.
“I am for sure doing the four superspeedway races,” he said. “I am running the race at World Wide Technology Raceway there in St. Louis. It’s a big race for us, it’s the home of the Bommarito Automotive Group, it’s the home of Volpi. If we can get more partners, we’re going to run more races.”