Jake Garcia won the 2025 World Crown 300 at Cordele Motor Speedway.
Garcia made a late race pass on Collin Allman with 44 laps to go to take the lead. Garcia puled away and led uncontested to the checkered flag to take the win in the crown jewel and pick up a $42,500 payday. Garcia wasn’t at practice on Thursday and Friday due to racing in the NASCAR Truck Series race at Martinsville, so he entered the night with less track time than the field, but it didn’t matter.
“[I had] a really, really good car,” Garcia said. “I want to thank all my guys for bringing it to the racetrack. We didn’t get as much practice as everyone else. They were practicing Thursday and Friday and I was in Martinsville. [I] drove last night down here. [I] got here about 11:30 this morning. I think that shows how prepared our team was and how good our car was. Didn’t make a lot of changes in practice and had a really good car in the race. I want to thank all the guys at FR8 Racing and I’m excited for the rest of the year with them.”
Garcia ran the Super Fest doubleheader last month and had a decent run in both races after struggling in practice. All the laps that weekend helped him get up to speed quickly tonight, as well as give him some more purse money for running two of the Super Fest races.
“I think it paid off $7,500 worth,” Garcia said. “I think that was the bonus for running it. It’s always good when you’ve got a good notebook at a place. We certainly do here. We’ve won a few Super races here so I think it’s four now. I think that shows how good our cars are. We keep building and making minor tweaks. I think it’s paid off to where now we can show up to the racetrack when I don’t practice and still be good.”
Garcia came up through the Super Late Model ranks before landing his NASCAR Truck Series ride with ThorSport Racing. Now that he has a full-time seat in one of the top NASCAR series, he has been able to pick and choose Super Late model races he runs and have more fun.
“I think it’s cool that we’ve only run five or six [Super races] this year,” Garcia said. “We run good when we do run and I credit that to my guys and bringing them [to the racetrack] fast. Back when I ran this stuff full-time I was racing 20-25 times a year. Now we run six times a year and it’s hard to keep up sometimes. I want to thank these guys for allowing me to show up with a good racecar and not have to work on the car. “
In the runner-up spot was Collin Allman. After dominating much of the later half of the race and battling with Garcia, he didn’t have enough to battle with him once Garcia got past with 44 laps to go. Despite another runner-up at Cordele, it was a good run for him and the team.
“I don’t know what happened,” Allman said. “I opened up the stagger and it got tighter, so I’m not sure. I don’t know if the track just tightened up that much or what. Tire pressures came in funky, too. That thing was rolling the second stage, second set of tires. It was a little snug the first set, so we opened up the stagger a little bit, made a couple other adjustments, and it was really fast. I couldn’t ask for a much better race car. It was still a little snug, so we made it a little bit freer, tried to make it a little bit freer for the third set, and it got way tighter than it had been all night. So I’m not really sure what happened, to be honest with you.
“But I thought we had it, especially after that restart, when we restarted fifth and we had our tires on and the four guys in front of us were all on old tires. When we got by Sauter [and] I thought we were going to be able to set sail, and that wasn’t the case. Jake was really good, too. He was fast. I feel like both of us were really good. I feel like Bubba was really good, too. I think it was pretty much us three tonight. Bubba, unfortunately, had the ignition box [malfunction]. But I think it was us three tonight. With what we’re racing against, I’m proud of that.
“Obviously, when you lead laps and you want to close it out, you know what I mean? I’ve finished second here, I don’t know how many times now. I still haven’t won at this place, and I’m itching to get that one here for sure.”
Even though he wanted a win, this second place run keeps the momentum they’ve built up flowing.
“I’m always confident coming here ever since last year,” Allman said. “Unfortunately, we got stuck a lap down the second segment last year. But we drove through the field [in] the last segment and ended up sixth on the racetrack. And the car was really fast. I think we were running top three times. So we kind of hit on a baseline there and came back here this year in February and finished fifth that night against real good competition for that race as well.
“So we’ve just been inching forward, and we definitely went in the right direction again today. I feel like we were better tonight than we were back in September, but we still need a little bit to beat that 35 car, man. Rick and his guys have that thing dialed in. I don’t think they practiced all weekend until today, so that just shows you how good their program is. And we just [have] to continue to get better.”
Bubba Pollard rounded out the podium, but it was anything but a normal day for the Georgia native. He was behind the eightball before the weekend even began, as he raced with a broken hand he suffered in the ASA race at Toledo. He qualified on pole, but had a mechanical failure just after lap 100. The crew got it fixed, and in the final stretch of the race, he was one of the faster cars on the track, but he could only get up to third by the time the checkered flag flew.
“It’s a tough day,” Pollard said. “It’s hard losing track position when the cars are so good like they are. They were better than us at the end, but we had to use up a lot of tires to get there. We just we had ignition box go out and I hate it. [It’s] part of it. [When] you lose that track position, it’s hard to get it back. It makes a long day we kind of got behind got some traffic the second set of tires.
[The car] was kind of freed and it got tight and just had no lateral grip all over the racetrack. So we came in and we just did the best we [could] in the last stop and it was good. We just couldn’t get there in time. I was pretty aggressive there on those restarts to make it happen, but I didn’t want to wreck the car.”
Even though he missed out on the win, being able to rally back gives him some momentum going forward.
“Well, we got speed,” Pollard said. “That’s good. You leave here and you’re terrible or getting laughs or having a bad day, you question yourself or what your package is, but we got speed we’ve had speed all weekend we just need to work on a few things, clean a few things up and see what we’ve got for the Derby.”
Pollard also says his hand is doing okay after the race.
“It’s fine,” Pollard said. “It’s fine now, but it bothers me during the race.”
Johnny Sauter finished fourth after a strong day. He led late in the race, but once Allman passed him for the lead with 54 laps to go, he couldn’t hold the track position and fell back.
“I mean where we qualified obviously that put us pretty far back,” Sauter said. “Then that first set of tires was just too free. Then the second set was pretty good. At the end of that one run there we were the fastest car on the racetrack and called for no adjustments and then that last set the stagger just opened up just a little bit. We were just too free. I knew once we were in the lead and the caution came out there at lap 211 or 215, I knew those guys were gonna come get tires and then they only restarted one or two rows behind us. I was like,, well, we’re gonna do all we can do to try to hold them guys off.’
“So yeah, all in all just thank Phoenix, Finch, Matt Jones, everybody, Richie Waters, all the guys. This was fun tonight. Just needed a little bit more traction and we didn’t have it. So I don’t know, it’s a tough place.”
Finch and Sauter had a conversation after the race and Sauter expressed his gratitude to the Finch family and the team.
“Without him we wouldn’t be here,” Sauter said. “So obviously it’s everything to us. I know him and Richie have known each other a long time. I drove for Finch in the Busch Series and in the Cup Series for a year or two there. So I’ve known them for a long time. So it’s cool. And obviously we got a lot of other people like Billy Blue, PME Engines, Fury Race Cars, everybody. You know, it’s a team effort anymore. It takes everything. This is so hard and so expensive. It takes an army.”
Sauter and the team now have a great notebook heading forward for the rest of the year. They made many adjustments in the practice sessions, and the top five run tonight gives them momentum as well.
“There’s a couple things that we elected not to do that we’ve done in the past for traction,” Sauter said. “You know yesterday we just didn’t need it. I felt good and we made some decent long runs and the grip was there. So I think the track just cooled off a lot tonight and a lot of times when that happens you get more front grip than you do rear grip. There’s definitely some tools in the toolbox that we can use to make it a little better.
“All in all, good night and you know had the race played out a little different where the cautions went deep into that last 200 laps I don’t think those guys would have enough time to get there. We were just a little bit off on that, only having 20 lap pressure tires. Cars are one piece and we’ll go forward.”
Seth Christensen rounded out the top five in his debut race with JC Motorsports. The run gives him and the team confidence which is valuable for both of them, especially ahead of the Snowball Derby, which Christensen will be making his debut in.
“It was overall really, really cool,” Christensen said. “Tthis JC Motorsports team was brand new at Speed Fest this year. So really cool to get a top five with our Super Late Model baby with them. I] love this place. So I’m super glad that we got to be with the Nolands here at Cordele Motor Speedway for the World Crown 300. It’s a really cool event. Mown Pendergrass native, Paul Kelly, has won it a couple times. So I wish we could bring home another one for Pendergrass, Georgia. But unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.
“But, you know, we had a really good racecar in our second and third stage there. It was just too tight there to get good traction. We didn’t have the right position on some of those guys and kind of fell back a little more than we needed to. But we had the right tire calls. Coming through the field there was really good. I got by Gavin. I really thought we could get to Sauter and those guys. But it just wasn’t in the cards. So really cool to close out the season with those guys and move on to the derby. It’ll be my first time at Pensacola in a Super. So that’ll be a learning curve. Nothing like the biggest race of the year to go try it out, right? So, you know, it’ll be really cool to go down there with the JC guys and look into it to make the most of it.”
The Kulwicki Driver Development driver has had a great year both statistically and has learned a lot.
“The whole year was a success,” Christensen said. “getting to learn so much from those guys, from Casey, Ryan, everybody that was involved in that program. Just super thankful to be with those guys and to be a finalist. The first Georgia finalist since, I believe, 2017. So it’s good to represent Georgia very well as long as the Southeast. I feel like it was very successful. It was a great season getting to meet so many cool people. Overall, I believe we got everything we could out of it and just, you know, really, really glad to have the opportunity with those guys and looking forward to next year.”
The full finishing results can be viewed below.
World Crown 300
Cordele Motor Speedway
October 25, 2025
1. #35 Jake Garcia
2. #67 Collin Allman
3. #26 Bubba Pollard
4. #5 Johnny Sauter
5. #54S Seth Christensen
6. #24 Gavan Boschelle
7. #51N Stephen Nasse
8. #3S Dustin Smith
9. #96 Spencer Davis
10. #54M Matthew Craig
11. #53 Boris Jurkovic
12. #18 Colby Howard
13. #51F Jake Finch
14. #17 Hudson Bulger
15. #50 Jett Noland
16. #6 Chet Monaweck
17. #10 George Gorham
18. #14 Michael Atwell
19. #33W Michael Webster
20. #9 Hudson Halder
