United States Navy Lieutenant Jesse Iwuji will be making his superspeedway debut in February when he’ll be taking his No. 39 Patriot Motorsports Group Chevrolet to the green flag in the ARCA season opener. It will also be Iwuji’s ARCA debut, having raced in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series West since 2015. In 2017 he made two starts in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East.
Iwuji was on hand for ARCA testing in January, where he tried his hand in a 10-car draft for the first time.
“The draft is like something I’ve never felt,” said Iwuji. “It’s wild how the air sucks you in and pushes you around. It’s an art and I need to learn it.”
Iwuji also said that his first Daytona experience was unlike anything he’d ever felt before, saying, “It was a blessing that only God can allow to happen. [I] definitely thank him for leading me in the right directions. After my first lap, I thought, ‘Jesse, you aren’t in Texas anymore,’ after experiencing the amount of G-Forces a track like Daytona could put on a driver.”
Iwuji and PMG plan to make seven more ARCA starts in 2018, and while Iwuji will run 12 K&N Pro Series West and East races in 2018, Belgian NASCAR Euro Series driver Jerry De Weerdt and Swedish Trans-Am driver Jonas Fors will also be making some ARCA starts for the team with Illinois-based mortgage company BBMC Mortgage, which will be running their “We Got Your Six” campaign on the PMG Chevrolet.
The move to ARCA is a big step for PMG, which isn’t a well-funded organization compared to some of the other teams in the division, yet has worked hard to try to establish itself among the competition. Although they currently don’t have plans in regards to the Camping World Truck Series or XFINITY Series at the moment, Iwuji did say he does have plans regarding other NASCAR divisions but doesn’t intend to share what those plans are at the moment.”
