Jack Wood: Driver, No. 51 Rowdy Manufacturing Chevrolet
NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Overview:
Event: TSport 200, Race 17 of 23, 200 laps – 60/60/80; 137.2 Miles
Location: Lucas Oil Indianapolis (Ind.) Raceway Park (IRP) (0.686-mile oval)
Date/Broadcast: Aug. 11, 2023, at 9 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR 90
Get to Know Jack:
Jack Wood will make his eighth NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series start of 2023 for Kyle Busch Motorsports (KBM) behind the wheel of the No. 51 Rowdy Manufacturing Chevrolet in Friday’s TSport 200 at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park (IRP). Wood will kick off the owner’s playoffs for the 51 team, who qualified for the postseason after finishing seventh in the regular season owner point standings. Wood qualified 19th and finished 25th in last year’s Truck Series race at IRP.
After the reseed, the No. 51 team enters the playoffs eighth on the playoff grid, right at the cutline for advancing to the Round of 8. Matt Mills will be in the No. 51 J.F. Electric Silverado at The Milwaukee Mile Aug. 27 and then Wood will finish out the remainder of the season. The Round of 10 will consist of three races before two teams are eliminated.
Wood has finished inside the top 10 in two of his seven Truck Series starts this season, including recording a career-best ninth-place finish at Texas Motor Speedway in April. Across 42 career Truck Series starts, he has produced three laps led, three top-10 finishes and an average result of 24.9.
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 two top five and five top-10 finishes with an average result of 10.0 across six ARCA Menards Series starts this season. Across 15 career ARCA Menards Series starts he has recorded three top-five and nine top-10 finishes resulting in an average finish of 12.3.
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. The duo won again in July at Pocono Raceway and collected KBM’s 100th career Truck Series victory. 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 three 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 IRP. In the NASCAR Xfinity Series, his drivers have collected two top-five and three top-10 finishes across five races, with the best result being a runner-up finish with Reed Sorenson in 2006.
Across 17 starts in 2023, the No. 51 team has recorded two wins, one pole, 170 laps led, seven top-five and 10 top-10 finishes resulting in an average finish of 11.8. Owner-driver Kyle Busch recorded both of the 51 team’s victories winning the second race of the season at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and most recently collecting his organization’s historic 100th win July 22 at Pocono Raceway. Matt Mills finished fifth for the team in the Truck Series most recent stop at Richmond Raceway July 29.
The No. 51 team has captured the NASCAR Craftsman World Truck Series owner’s championship three times (2013-2014 and 2019) and as an organization KBM has collected a series-record seven owner’s titles.
Rowdy Manufacturing will serve as the primary sponsor on Wood’s No. 51 Silverado Friday night. 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.
Jack Wood, Driver Q&A:
How hard is it having breaks in your schedule behind the wheel of the No. 51 truck?
“It has its ups and downs; it was nice to have time to kind of travel a little bit and spend time with friends and family. I’ll go to the simulator before the race this week and knock some of the rust off and try to get in some other vehicles before the race this weekend.”
IRP has a unique configuration. How do you attack that track?
“It reminds me a lot of a track that I grew up racing at in Southern California — Irwindale (Speedway). It’s a cool track to go to with the trucks and I think that it will race really well. Last year it was a struggle for me to get that place figured out, but the KBM stuff was really fast there last year and the short track program this year in general at KBM has been really strong, so I’m excited to go there with the 51 guys.”
Do you approach this race differently with the 51 team being in the owner’s playoffs?
“You think about it, but in the end, I just have to go out there and do my job. The trucks obviously have speed — Kyle’s been able to win the two races and bring home the 100th win for KBM. We are going to do our best to get the 51 team as far as we can in the owner’s playoffs and if we can just go out and execute, I think that we will be just fine.”
Jack Wood Career Highlights:
- Has produced three top-10 finishes across 42 career starts in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series. Posted a series-best ninth-place finish at Texas Motor Speedway in April.
- Has compiled 14 laps led, three top-five and nine top-10 finishes across 15 career ARCA Menards Series events.
- Has totaled three top-five and eight top-10 finishes across 12 career starts in the ARCA Menards West Series.
- Compiled one top-five and three top-10 finishes across 24 starts in the SRL Spears Southwest Tour from 2017 to 2021.
- Jack Wood’s No. 51 Rowdy Manufacturing Chevrolet Silverado RST:
KBM-62: The No. 51 Rowdy Manufacturing team will unload KBM-62 for Friday’s race at IRP. This Silverado raced most recently at North Wilkesboro Speedway where William Byron led 11 laps before finishing 11th. KBM owner-driver Kyle Busch has finished second with this chassis twice, earlier this year at Martinsville Speedway and in 2021 at Richmond Raceway.
KBM Notes of Interest:
- KBM drivers have recorded one pole, two top-five and three top-10 finishes across five Truck Series starts at IRP resulting in an average finish of 11.4. Owner-driver Kyle Busch’s runner-up finish in 2010 was the organization’s best result.
- KBM holds the Craftsman Truck Series records for most career wins (100) and most wins in a single season (14 in 2014). KBM owner-driver Kyle Busch picked up his organization’s first-ever win at Nashville Superspeedway in April of 2010 and also picked up its 100th Truck Series victory at Pocono Raceway in July of 2023. In addition to collecting a series-record seven owner’s championships, the organization has produced two championship-winning drivers: Erik Jones (2015) and Christopher Bell (2017).
- With 42 victories, the No. 51 is the winningest number in KBM’s Truck Series fleet.
