By: Ashley McCubbin

After having success in both Midgets and Modifieds, Andy Jankowiak has made the next step of his racing career, battling in the ARCA Menards Series. He put together an impressive run in the ARCA 200 on Friday night at Daytona International Speedway with a 10th-place finish.

Prior to the event, he spoke with NEWS FROM THE PITS about his thoughts going into the 2.5-mile oval as well as the season as a whole.

What are your thoughts going into Daytona?

It seems so far away all the time, and then all of a sudden, we’re in Daytona and it’s here. It’s been hectic two months. I tell people all the time that January is actually my busiest month of the racing season between getting ready to go racing and testing. We’ve been fortunate to go midget racing a lot – we got a couple wins, got a big win at Atlantic City. So we’re feeling pretty good going into our big race at Daytona so hopefully it goes well.

I was just going to ask. What are the goals as you make the trip down to Florida once again?

I want to win, to be perfectly honest with you. I think the ability to do it. I think we have a great car and a great team and then working closely with TJ Majors. It’s amazing how much data there is on this stuff and things that you can learn with the simulator and working on side drafting, all the little things to get yourself a better chance. If the situation plays itself out, then I have a shot to win, I feel like I know what to do, and you need some luck, too. You have to be in the right place at the right time to have that opportunity.

So certainly we need a little bit of good fortune on our side to get us there, but if we put ourselves in position there in the final laps, I feel really good about my car and knowing what to do and having TJ on the radio, and I think we’ll have a good chance.

What have you been able to learn for the past three years in gaining experience in the ARCA Racing Series that you feel will be the most beneficial going into your fourth season of running these cars?

Certainly the side drafting. It’s such an art and its things that you don’t realize are going on when you watch a NASCAR race till you start really learning from a guy like TJ Majors or Andy Seuss, my car chief. The little details that these drivers are massaging as these races go on and things you don’t even see that are going on with the air. Just understanding little bit more about that stuff.

Certainly racing in the ARCA Series, I’ve only done it a couple times and certainly don’t have the experience like a NASCAR driver. But having a guy like TJ Majors on your side that has all that experience is a huge asset and someone we will certainly lean on. The other aspect is knowing when to take a chance, and knowing when to keep your nose clean to get to the next lap.

The past couple of years we’ve seen run anywhere from seven to 10 races on the schedule. What does 2024 look like for you?

Right now, we’re committed to 12 and working on doing the full schedule. We have sponsorship commitments that will take us to at least 12 of them. We’re going to the first seven regardless so we’re committed through Iowa. So at that point, it will depend where we’re at with sponsors and points and how things are going. I have a really good ownership group with Kevin and Andy Seuss. They’re prepared to take us the whole way if that’s the right thing to do, and if we have to look at things and maybe we have to re-access instead of trying to do all of them, then we’ll make the best decision  as a team.

We’ve seen you race a lot of different cars through your career, but how did it begin initially to start with?

So I come with a pretty long family. My family has been in racing for years. My dad and my uncle raced, my mom is a feature winner at Lancaster Speedway. I was born into it. I was born with a love of it. I was dreaming of racing at tracks like Daytona when I was just a little kid. It’s always been the goal and I always kept that dream in me in the front windshield and kept after it rising up through modified racing, midgets, and we were able to be successful with a lot of different things. We saw a way to race at Daytona and took a chance and went for it.

You mentioned it – you’ve racing TQ Midgets, modifieds, and now ARCA. What is out there motorsport wise that you would like to get behind the wheel of one day?

That’s a new question – I love it. I don’t know. I’ve always wanted to race NASCAR. That was always the goal. That was always the dream and now I’m having this wonderful opportunity and pretty much taking – it’s a full effort to be good at this and I want to be good at this and I want to give everything that I can to ARCA right now. I try to not think too far ahead but certainly there will be a day somewhere that we do something different.

There’s a series in England that races called FRISCA – I want to try that. The little 500 with the asphalt sprint cars looked cool. I’ve got a lot of years left in me to focus on other things and go on other adventures and find something exciting to do. But for the time being, it’s all in on ARCA and chasing the NASCAR dream and giving it everything I’ve got.

Who do you consider your racing hero?

Certainly my dad. My dad and my uncle. I grew up idolizing those guys and kind of molding the driver I wanted to be based off everything they did. I just wanted to be like them in the worst way. In the professional leagues, Ayrton Senna is an inspiration. Dale Earnhardt was always my favourite. Certainly the way I started in ARCA, in the back of my mind, I saw lot of how Alan Kulwicki did things and he was certainly a good role model, too.

What would be a piece of advice to someone getting started that hopes to one day driven the wide arrange of vehicles that you have gotten to drive?

Just never let anyone tell you that you can’t do it and don’t let anyone tell you how to do it. Do it however it’s going to work for you and chase it. Unfortunately, the way NASCAR works right now, you can go win all the races in the world but they’re not going to call you. You have to go out there and make it happen if you want to go do it. I was really fortunate in a lot of good things that happened for me and got a lot of good breaks and blessed to be able to doing what I am doing. It’s been a crazy experience and we’ve all worked really hard and there’s a lot of drivers that have worked just as hard as me – if not harder – and didn’t have the same luck.

So I know how lucky I am to be able to do it. I think the best advice I can give is to just be ambitious and go after it.