- Jack Wood will make his seventh NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series start of 2023 for Kyle Busch Motorsports (KBM) behind the wheel of the No. 51 Rowdy Manufacturing Chevrolet in Saturday’s O’Reilly Auto Parts 150 at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. In addition to running the Truck Series race, Wood will also be competing in Friday’s ARCA Menards Series event at the 2.258-mile road course. The California native was relegated to a 29th-place finish in last year’s inaugural Truck Series race at Mid-Ohio after being involved in an accident on lap 55. He has an average finish of 26.0 across five career road course starts in the Truck Series, with a best result of 16th coming at Sonoma Raceway in 2022.
- While this will be Wood’s first start on a road course in the Truck Series this year, he has raced in both the ARCA Menards Series West and TA2 Series on road courses this year. Most recently, he finished fourth in the ARCA Menards Series West race June 9 at Sonoma Raceway behind Ryan Preece, Sammy Smith and Riley Herbst. In late April, he captured the pole and brought home the victory at Sonoma in the TA2 Series.
- The 22-year-old driver has finished inside the top 10 in two of his six Truck Series starts this season, including recording a career-best ninth-place finish at Texas Motor Speedway in April. In addition to his part-time schedule for KBM in the Truck Series this season, Wood is running a limited schedule in the ARCA Series with Rev Racing. The California native has one top five and four top-10 finishes with an average result of 11.4 across five ARCA Menards Series starts this season.
- Wood will be trying to etch his mark in the KBM historical archives this weekend at Mid-Ohio as he looks to collect the organization’s 100th NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series victory. KBM owner-driver Kyle Busch collected KBM’s record-extending 99th-career victory with his victory at Las Vegas Motor Speedway earlier this year leaving his organization one shy of the century mark. Overall, 18 different drivers have won at least one race behind the wheel of a KBM truck, led by Busch’s 47. Four drivers rank second on the list with seven victories: Byron, Christopher Bell, Erik Jones and John Hunter Nemechek. Two of KBM’s wins have come on road courses: Busch at Sonoma last year and Erik Jones at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park in 2015.
- Veteran crew chief Brian Pattie is calling the shots for the No. 51 team this year in his first season at KBM after spending the last 14 seasons atop the pit box in the NASCAR Cup Series. It took the veteran signal caller just two races to get his first win at KBM, winning with owner-driver Kyle Busch at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. In the Cup Series, his drivers produced six wins, nine poles, 57 top-five and 131 top-10 finishes across 528 starts. In 2012, he guided Clint Bowyer to three victories and a runner-up finish in the Cup Series championship standings. In 2017, he guided Ricky Stenhouse Jr. to two wins and a berth in the playoffs. The Florida native has also recorded 11 wins in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, and now has two wins as a crew chief in the Truck Series. This will be Pattie’s first race atop the pit box for a Truck Series race at Mid-Ohio. He has one road course victory in NASCAR’s third division, a win with Ron Fellows at Watkins Glen International in June of 1999. He also has two road course victories with Fellows at Watkins Glen in the NASCAR Xfinity Series (2000 and 2001). In the Cup Series he has been to victory lane twice on road courses, with Juan Pablo Montoya at Watkins Glen in 2010 and at Sonoma with Clint Bowyer in 2012.
- The No. 51 team currently ranks sixth in the Craftsman Truck Series owner’s point standings, 68 points above the cutoff line for making the owner’s playoffs with three races remaining in the regular season. Over the first 13 races, they have recorded one win, one pole, 163 laps led, five top-five and eight top-10 finishes resulting in an average finish of 11.7. Kyle Busch returns to the Zariz Transport Silverado at Pocono Raceway July 22 and Matt Mills will be in the No. 51 J.F. Electric Silverado at Richmond Raceway July 29. Wood’s next event will be Aug. 11 at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park.
- Rowdy Manufacturing will serve as the primary sponsor on Wood’s No. 51 Silverado Saturday. Rowdy Manufacturing offers precision machining of components from concept to completion across all industrial sectors including automotive, aerospace and NASCAR teams. Rowdy Manufacturing builds the chassis that KBM races as well as several other teams in the Truck Series including race-winning organizations Spire Motorsports and Henderson Motorsports. The same attention to detail that has made Rowdy Manufacturing owner Kyle Busch a two-time Cup Series champion goes into every component that comes out of his organization’s Mooresville, N.C. facility.
Are you looking forward to your first road course race in the Truck Series this year?
“I’m looking forward to it. I’ve ran a couple road course races this year with the Lagasses (TeamSLR) and was able to win the Trans Am race back in April at Sonoma. I’m excited to try something different and the KBM road course package showed that it was strong at Circuit of the Americas with Kyle (Busch). Mid-Ohio is a fun road course and a place that I’ve put a lot of work into with different tests and what not. I’m running the ARCA race on Friday so that’ll get me some extra laps before the Truck Series race on Saturday as well.”
How different is a truck on a road course compared to the other vehicles you’ve driven this year?
“It’s quite a bit different I would say, the center of gravity in the truck is so much higher than in the Trans Am car and even the ARCA car. I think you have to minimize mistakes even more because of that, but the things that you have to do to go fast on a road course apply across really any vehicle. I just have to be adaptable any pay attention to what we are going to need to do to make speed.”
How does Mid-Ohio compare to other road courses you’ve raced at?
“There isn’t a lot of elevation change at Mid-Ohio, but there are some really heavy braking zones and other cool stuff. It’s got a little bit of everything but there isn’t a lot of room to race side by side, so qualifying is going to be really important especially with not having live pit stops. Our pit crew has been really good and usually helps us out with a couple spots every time down pit road and we’re not going to have that advantage this week. It’s going to be important to get 100 percent out of the vehicle every chance you get. I think we’ll have a good weekend!”
KBM PR
