Jordan Anderson Planning 2016 return after hard-fought 2015 season

 If Jordan Anderson wanted to write a book on his rookie season in NASCAR's Camping World Truck Series, he wouldn't be short of stories. From driving cross country to Las Vegas, scrambling to find a passport for a race in Canada and several late nights preparing his truck to go to the track, the A.C. Flora grad experienced just about everything in his first year in one of NASCAR's top series. Despite the challenges of being a single-truck team, Anderson found enough sponsorship to drive in 17-of-23 races this season. His best finish was
13th at Michigan, which he called "like a victory" for the team. He finished 19th in the series points and made his debut in the Xfinity Series on Aug. 21 at Bristol Motor Speedway on a weekend in which he failed to qualify for the truck race. "This year almost been like a movie, all the things we experienced and been through. Being the underdog on a team and against guys that have like 20 or 30 crew members working on a truck," Anderson said. "So, for us to be at the race track every week has been an honor. The plan for us was to run Daytona and anything was a bonus, so running almost a full schedule was a dream. There were a lot of cool moments and looking back, you get caught in moment sometimes during the
season and don't appreciate it. But it definitely was a year I will remember." Anderson said he has spent some of his time off reflecting on the season, which was his first full year on any level since 2011. After spending some time with friends and family for the holidays, he is in the process of lining up everything for the upcoming season and hopes to have things wrapped later this month in time for the season opener in Daytona next month. Unlike drivers in bigger organization, Anderson's responsibility is more than just driving on the weekends. Anderson, who earned a business degree at Belmont Abbey, is involved in drumming up sponsorship anyway he can throughout the season. He is his own public relation person, helped designed paint schemes, and worked on his truck before getting it to the track and when he got there. For last year's opening race at Daytona, Anderson and his crew finished at 2 a.m. in Charlotte, before he and his father, who spotted for him during some races, drove to Florida to be at the track at 10 a.m. that day. Anderson's full-time crew each week consisted just of him, crew chief Dan Kolanda and one other person. Anderson had just one truck to make it through the year, so it was important he learned to take care of his equipment during his schedule. If he would wreck, that might mean Anderson's season might be in jeopardy. And just getting to the track wasn't an easy task. Anderson drove the team's hauler to the track on most weekends and had plenty of adventures on the road to tell. He ended up staying in Iowa for nearly a month when his hauler broke down twice after back-to-back racing weekends in St. Louis and Iowa. That was just one of many instances like that during the season. In August, Anderson had to scramble for a passport when he found out he would be driving in the truck series race in Canada. He drove to Atlanta on a Tuesday to get the passport. The next day, he drove his hauler by himself 17 hours to Canada. "Hopefully, this offseason, we can get things built up, have a few more trucks we can use and keep this thing going in the right direction." (The State)

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