Wood Delivers Best-Career Road Course Finish at COTA - Speedway Digest

Jack Wood delivered his best-career road course finish at Circuit of the Americas (COTA) with a 13th-place result on Saturday afternoon. The driver of the No. 91 Klotz Synthetics / Cometic Gasket Chevrolet Silverado RST also recorded his best finish in three starts this season in the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series (NCTS). Through five races, the No. 91 team remains 11th in the NCTS owners’ point standings.

Wood took the green flag in 22nd position on Saturday afternoon and methodically made progress in the opening stage. He showed dramatic improvement from his previous COTA starts in the opening laps and was running 17th before a round of green flag pit stops began on lap nine. Crew chief Kevin Bellicourt kept Wood on track to finish ninth at the end of Stage 1 on lap 12 to collect two points.

Wood made his first pit stop for four tires and fuel under the stage yellow and restarted 18th on lap 15. Bellicourt made a timely pit call to bring Wood back to pit road on lap 21 before an impending caution flew later that lap. He was able to restart 14th on lap 24 and finished Stage 2 in 13th.

On lap 29, Wood restarted 12th after staying on track during the stage caution. As the lap count dwindled, Wood was the victim of aggression and was bumped out of the racing line and fell back to 18th position. His savior was a caution on lap 38 which allowed the Klotz Synthetics team to put four fresh tires on Wood’s Chevrolet for the final laps. As the race came down to a final overtime restart, Wood took advantage of his fresh tires to climb from outside the top-15 to notch a 13th-place finish.

Jack Wood Quote:

“We had a pretty well-balanced Klotz, Cometic Chevrolet. We battled some front tire chatter and forward drive issues throughout the race, but we kept at it and made some improvements throughout the day. It feels good to get a decent finish here after all the cautions near the end. We did a good job today at minimizing our mistakes and making the most of our day.”

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