NASCAR driver and team owner Jordan Anderson inherited the entrepreneurial spirit from his parents.
“Growing up, my dad was a huge proponent of us doing it our own way all the way back to when we ran go-karts and Bandoleros,” 31-year-old Anderson told SPEED SPORT. “We really had no idea what we were doing. I still remember the first time we were racing go-karts in the WKA at Concord Speedway. A kid walked up to us and said, ‘Hey, your toe is out on your kart.’ We both looked down at the toes on our feet. We were clueless about anything racing, but we loved what we were doing.
“My mom and dad were both entrepreneurs. My dad was in the rental property business. He would buy single-family homes down in Columbia, S.C., that were dilapidated, and he would fix them up and rent them out,” Anderson continued. “My mom owned a hair salon down there in Columbia, so they both had that entrepreneurial spirit of we’re going to work 18 hours just to keep from working for someone else.”
Anderson eventually raced his way through the ranks — Bandoleros, Legend Cars, dirt late models and super late models — and made his NASCAR Camping World Truck Series debut in 2014.
After four years of driving trucks for other team owners, Anderson’s entrepreneurial instincts took control.
“I thought I could get back to the way I did it during my late model days and do it myself. That was in 2018 when Jordan Anderson Racing was officially born,” Anderson said. “When you look back at the journey and all that we went through, it was never the plan to be the car owner, it’s just kind of the way it happened. If you would have told me back when I had my super late model that I would own a NASCAR team one day, I would have said, ‘Yea, that’s the dream, but I think you’re crazy.’
“It has certainly been a journey, one that has had a lot of twists and turns, but one that’s been exciting. It’s been cool to see how much we’ve grown and how far we’ve come in just a short time,” Anderson noted. “In 2018, we had two or three trucks and we went to the track with a dually and a goose-neck trailer. It was me and three buddies, and we traveled all across the country in that thing. There were a lot of late nights at the shop and long days on the road.”
Jordan Anderson Racing evolved over time and by February 2021 Anderson and his team were ready for the next step – but then it rained.
“We all saw what that unfortunate rain shower at Daytona did to our season, putting things on hold for a while,” said Anderson, who was forced to watch the 2021 NASCAR Xfinity Series opener after the field was determined by the previous year’s points.
“It was pretty tough to get through, but we were fortunate. That’s when things changed from me being the full-time driver to where we are now with Myatt Snider running for us. Other drivers running our car was never on the radar until that rain shower because I had planned to run for rookie of the year and planned to run a full season in the Xfinity Series.
“After that rain shower, I had to take a step back and figure what was going to be the best thing for the future of this business, the future of this team. I said, ‘We’ve got to get some guys that have experience,’ because at the time I had only run a few Xfinity Series cars, and I’d never really run a full race. Most of the Xfinity Series experience I had was in start-and-park stuff,” Anderson continued.
“I thought we could get some good guys lined up and that’s when we had a conversation with Tyler Reddick. It was amazing to see that we compiled enough points in those first two races with him, and then Josh Berry in a third race, to kind of work our way into the top 40 in points. We ended up having a lot of success last year and that spearheaded the team to start looking at the bigger picture.
“Where is this thing going to be in five years, 10 years? We want to make sure we are making decisions that solidify us to be in this sport for a long time. This is not a hobby for us. This is a full-time business, it’s my life. We’ve got a lot of blood, sweat and tears in this.”
Since buying Anderson a set of tires for a Truck Series race at World Wide Technology Raceway in 2016, John Bommarito, president of the Bommarito Automotive Group, has become Anderson’s biggest supporter — and now the two are partners.
“Over the winter of 2021, John Bommarito and I sat down and said, ‘Hey, let’s figure out how we can put our resources together to make sure this team has the ability to keep growing for years to come,’” Anderson recalled. “That’s when we created our partnership with a new team — Jordan Anderson Racing with Bommarito Autosport. John joined me as a partner for this season and beyond.
“We brought on Myatt Snider as our full-time driver with TaxSlayer, Louisiana Hot Sauce and Superior Essex as sponsors. It’s allowed our whole team to take the next step. Over the winter, we bought a shop here in Statesville, N.C., that’s just under 15,000 square feet. We’ve got a pull-down rig and a fab shop here in-house now — and we’ve got some great people involved.
“We’ve continued our relationship with RCR on the chassis side and ECR on the motor side,” Anderson added. “Our Truck Series program is still out there and we’re going to pick and choose a few races with it. One of the things we are focusing on is getting our second Xfinity Series car up and running. We want to do some more all-star situations like we did last year for myself and some other drivers.
“It has been a lot of work to make sure this team grows. I wear a lot of hats as far as helping run the day-to-day operations. I do the accounting for the team. I do all of our graphics and I still do our social media. Putting the right people in the right places has been the biggest thing and giving them the tools they need to be successful. It’s definitely been an adjustment from being a full-time driver.”
Anderson has some advice for aspiring NASCAR racers.
“Kids who are getting into the sport now, whether it be Bandoleros or Legend Cars, have all these agents and teams telling them they can’t break into NASCAR unless they have millions of dollars,” he said. “My story is the exact opposite. I didn’t have anything. I had to hustle and grind for everything. There were times it didn’t look like it was going to happen, but to have a career as a driver and now a team owner by persevering and grinding it out, our sport has the opportunity for you to be successful.”