Jordan Anderson has Embraced the Journey
 

Like so many kids, when Jordan Anderson was just a few years old, the native of Forest Acres, South Carolina, told his parents he wanted to be a race car driver. He thinks at the time they likely put it in the same category as astronaut or cowboy. But, he was serious.

Now, at just 33, he is one of the youngest owners in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, and his Chevrolet-backed program continues to grow, with one victory already to its credit. Anderson doesn’t get behind the wheel as much as he used to, but still makes occasional starts in the team’s third Camaro SS alongside the team’s full-time drivers. For the past two seasons, Jeb Burton and Parker Retzlaff have held those full-time roles.

Throughout Anderson’s career, and his life, the Chevrolet brand has been a constant.

“My grandfather worked for GMAC for 40 years, so [as I was] growing up my grandfather always drove Chevrolets, my dad drove Chevrolets, I was around it my whole life,” Anderson says. “Fast forward to 2014, when I got to make my first [NASCAR Craftsman] Truck Series start it was in a Silverado. That side of things has pretty much been Chevy the whole way. It's been so cool to see that relationship grow from where it started.”

Anderson’s motto for much of his life has been “embrace the journey,” an attitude that served him well as he fought to find a footing in the motorsports world. He learned his best opportunity to make it in the sport was to run his own programs, stretch dollars and learn how to budget to ensure he could get on track as much as possible. It’s a philosophy and mindset he attributes to his parents, Clif and Sherry.

“My mom and dad made a lot of sacrifices,” he says. “My dad would buy and flip houses and my mom owned a hair salon so they were hardcore middle class. They both worked for themselves, both self-employed. For a lot of my upbringing, I would watch them sometimes work 70 hours a week to avoid working 9 to 5. They had that ingrained in me from a young age, but also that anything is possible. If you want to do something and you're passionate about it, don't let anybody tell you no.”

Anderson began racing go-karts at the age of 7 and climbed through the Bandolero and Legend car ranks before moving into a pavement Super Late Model (and dabbling in dirt along the way). When he was ready to go to college, he found himself at a crossroads and needed to choose between pursuing mechanical engineering at UNC-Charlotte or motorsports marketing at Belmont-Abbey College outside of Charlotte. He ultimately got a business management degree from Belmont-Abbey. Although team ownership wasn’t necessarily on his mind at the time, figuring out a way to keep racing was.

As he progressed through the racing ladder, he found his own funding, bought his own cars and worked on his own equipment. His first crew chief on his Super Late Model was the late Bobby Gill, a legend in short track racing. Anderson and Gill ran the entire operation and competed at tracks around the Southeast. Anderson’s mechanical knowledge and business acumen grew in the real world to supplement his formal schooling.

“I was making sure that the oil in the dually was ready to go, the trailer was maintained, the entry fees paid and I had all the help lined up,” he says. “I was balancing my checkbook back then, making sure everything was aligned. It just kind of happened that way ... that was my best opportunity to go racing. If I'm going to run the books, I'm going to figure out how to take this dollar and stretch it as far as I can.

“Back then I was around a lot of guys that would just take their funding and go drive for a team. Maybe that would have been a path, but at the time it seemed like the best avenue would be to take my funding and maybe if I do it this way, I'll get a 14- or 15-race schedule versus just five or something like that. That experience really parlayed into what we're doing now.”

Ironically, it was an ill-fated K&N East Series (now ARCA Menard Series East) start at Richmond Raceway in 2014 that propelled Anderson to the NASCAR national series. Anderson was involved in a crash early in that race, and then a few weeks later, he started getting calls that his car owner’s checks had bounced. He called his dad for advice, who told him he needed to make it right. He sold most of his equipment and decided he’d try to use what was left in his bank account to just make one Truck Series start before calling it a career.

He raced with a small team at Phoenix Raceway that fall and finished 24th. He got another opportunity at Homestead-Miami the next week, and for the next three seasons worked with a variety of owners who allowed Anderson to race for them, provided he found funding and operated the program. He did so on a shoestring budget, finding a home in the series as a lovable underdog popular with fans and sponsors alike. His small group even famously traveled the country in a gooseneck trailer, often nestled in the garage between multimillion-dollar operations.

Anderson started his own team in 2018, driving the No. 3 Silverado in honor of the legendary Junior Johnson – the moonshiner, NASCAR Hall of Famer and 1960 Daytona 500 winner credited with “discovering” the draft on superspeedways. Anderson continued to run a tight operation and claimed a second-place result in a photo finish at Daytona to kick off the 2020 campaign. However, Covid soon sent the season – and the world – into a tailspin. Like so many other businesses, Jordan Anderson Racing was not immune.

After looking at the numbers, Anderson decided his best path forward was to move into the NASCAR Xfinity Series, but he realized he couldn’t do it alone. He partnered with John Bommarito of Bommarito Automotive Group in St. Louis to form Jordan Anderson Racing Bommarito Autosport. The two had known each other since a Truck Series race at World Wide Technology Raceway in the St. Louis area in 2016. That week, Bommarito bought two sets of tires for Anderson and he put the dealer on the hood of his truck.

“He came on board as a partner with me on this deal and helped provide the funds that we needed to go buy cars and engines and all the resources to go racing,” Anderson says. “We were off and running, so it was pretty cool to see the pieces come together, but it was a huge risk for us. It was kind of like when you're sitting in Vegas and you just say, ‘I’m all in.”

Anderson had planned to run for rookie of the year in the 2021 season, but when qualifying was rained out at the season-opener at Daytona, his team had no owner points to fall back on. As a result, he was locked out of the season’s first several events. Eventually, the team got into the top 40 in the point standings by using a variety of Cup Series drivers, previous Xfinity winners and other racers behind the wheel. Anderson realized it might be time to take a step back, seeing the team might be onto something as he focused on the ownership side.

Myatt Snider drove for the team in 2022, with Burton (son of 2002 Daytona 500 champion Ward Burton) and Retzlaff joining the operation in 2023. Burton scored the organization’s first victory at Talladega Superspeedway in the spring of 2023 and Retzlaff scored its first pole at Richmond in early 2024.

“[Retzlaff] and Jeb have worked together well, they push each other, and they know that the important thing here is to bring cars home,” Anderson says.

Anderson also competed in five superspeedway races in 2024 in the team’s third car, which has hit the track with multiple drivers. He scored a fourth-place finish at Daytona in February and was sixth at the track in August.

“I'm out there in the speedway races running door-to-door with [the full-time drivers] sometimes, so when they come to me with an idea or a problem or something that we could do better, I feel like we can have a better discussion about it,” Anderson says. “We can communicate on a driver level and then I can kind of take that and parlay it into what needs to happen on the ownership side.”

Anderson’s crew chief in several races has been his father-in-law, the renowned Larry McReynolds, who during his tenure at Richard Childress Racing guided Dale Earnhardt to his 1998 Daytona 500 victory in his famed black No. 3 Chevy. Anderson is married to McReynolds’ daughter, Kendall. Her father supports Anderson in a variety of ways.

“He'll stop by the shop every now and then and he's like, ‘Why don't you try this or think about this,’” Anderson says. “It kind of gives me a whole new perspective from somebody that has an outside, unbiased opinion. Sometimes it's so easy to get biased about feeling certain ways or about certain things. He's been a wealth of knowledge.”

Coincidentally, Anderson built much of his Xfinity fleet by buying cars from Chevrolet stalwart Richard Childress Racing, where McReynolds achieved several career highlights.

Team Chevy and the group at General Motors have also been instrumental in the success of Anderson’s team. He relies on the vast data, testing and simulation resources available at the GM Charlotte Technical Center in Concord, North Carolina, and the staff throughout the motorsports program has forged strong relationships with Anderson, including introducing him to Richard Childress and everyone at RCR.

Among those who have been in Anderson’s corner are Shane Martin, Xfinity Series Program Manager for Chevrolet; Pat Suhy, Manager, NASCAR Competition, for GM Motorsports; and Jim Campbell, General Motors U.S. Vice President of Performance and Motorsports.

“They have been integral from day one on navigating through this Xfinity Series,” Anderson says. “Shane kind of took a chance on a mid-pack Truck team and gave us all the resources we needed to be successful in the Xfinity Series. It’s really blossomed and it's been cool to watch.”

Anderson also daily drives a Chevrolet Silverado 2500 HD High Country to his shop in Statesville, North Carolina, maintaining the passion for the brand instilled in him by his family.

“I’m proud to run the bowtie, I drive my truck during the week and see the race cars on the weekend,” he says. “Last year, to win that race at Talladega and then for Chevy to win the Manufacturers title, to be even a small part of that was really special.”

Currently, Anderson is focused on running and growing his Xfinity team. He’s elected to shelve the Truck Series program for now after making a few starts in the early 2020s. He also says he doesn’t want to drain resources from his full-time drivers by competing too often, but he still has the desire to get back behind the wheel as much as he can. He plans to do so for decades to come – whether it’s in the upper echelon of NASCAR or at the grassroots level.

“I just have such a love for the sport and the opportunity to still race every now and then is important,” he says.

Today, Anderson has 33 employees, a successful race team and an ever-evolving relationship with Chevrolet. He’s a long way from the gooseneck trailer days, but his passion remains the same.

“It's been quite a ride,” Anderson says. “It’s been pretty fun.”

Consider the journey embraced.

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