Garcia Speeds To Kansas Truck Series Pole For ThorSport

Jake Garcia in action at Kansas Speedway Saturday. (Wyatt Tinsley/Race Face Digital photo)

KANSAS CITY, Kan. – With the same chassis he used to earn his first NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series pole, Jake Garcia duplicated the feat Saturday afternoon at Kansas Speedway.

Garcia roared to the pole for the Heart of Health Care 200 at the 1.5-mile oval, turning a lap of 30.742 seconds (175.655 mph) in the No. 13 Quanta Services Ford F-150 for ThorSport Racing.

It marked his second Truck Series pole in 59 career starts and his second in the last three races.

Garcia hopes to do at Kansas what he couldn’t quite accomplish at Rockingham (N.C.) Speedway in April, convert the top starting spot into a victory this time around.

“This is a really good truck. It’s been good for us every time we’ve raced it this year, so I’m excited for tonight’s race,” said Garcia. “I wasn’t really happy with our truck in practice. I feel like we’ve still got some work to do, but I feel like every week we’ve had practice, our Quanta Services group has made really good adjustments between practice and the race to get us dialed in a little bit better.

“I’m really confident in our group and I think we have a fast truck, so hopefully we can keep it up front.”

Joining Garcia on the front row is TRICON Garage’s Corey Heim, a three-time Truck Series winner this year who is chasing his third straight Kansas Truck Series victory Friday night.

As the last driver to make a time trial attempt, Heim toured the 1.5-mile Kansas oval in 30.843 seconds (175.080 mph) with the No. 11 Foster Love-Safelite Foundation Toyota Tundra TRD Pro.

Though Heim is a two-time Kansas winner, Saturday marked Heim’s first top-10 qualifying effort at the track since joining TRICON Garage in 2023.

“I think this is our best qualifying effort by like 11 spots or something here. I don’t know if that's a good thing or a bad thing, considering our track record here, but certainly excited to be on the front row,” Heim noted. “It’s been a couple years since I’ve been on the front row here, so a really big thank you to everyone at TRICON, Safelite, and Toyota … and we’re hoping to keep this Foster Care Awareness Month scheme going at the front.

“We obviously had a really good week last week at Texas, and I want to keep it rolling. We’ve had a lot of speed on these intermediates, and I’m definitely pumped for the race.”

Garcia’s ThorSport teammate, defending Truck Series champion Ty Majeski, starts third alongside NASCAR Cup Series regular Carson Hocevar. Two-time Truck Series champion Ty Majeski rolls off fifth to give owner Duke Thorson three of the top five starters.

Rajah Caruth qualified sixth with Niece Motorsports’ Kaden Honeycutt, who led practice and was fastest for much of qualifying after going out early, lining up seventh on the grid.

Rookie Dawson Sutton, Tanner Gray, and rookie Gio Ruggiero closed out the top 10 in qualifying.

Notables starting deeper in the field include two-time Daytona 500 winner William Byron (11th), Tyler Ankrum (12th), Chandler Smith (13th), Grant Enfinger (15th), Layne Riggs (16th), Daniel Hemric (22nd), and three-time Truck Series champion Matt Crafton (25th).

With just 31 entries in attendance at Kansas, no drivers failed to qualify for the ninth Truck Series race of the season.

Broadcast coverage of Friday night’s Heart of Health Care 200 at Kansas is slated for 7:30 p.m. ET, live on FS1, the NASCAR Racing Network, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, channel 90.