Bakersfield, California is about two thousand miles from Bristol Motor Speedway. Blaine Perkins has been closing that distance for six years.
He drives the No. 31 Jordan Anderson Racing Bommarito Autosport Chevrolet — same organization, same garage, different car than teammate Rajah Caruth's No. 32. Two full-time OARS entries for an independent team that has spent years proving it belongs in a series dominated by the big three organizations. Perkins is the veteran half of that equation, back at JAR for another season, familiar with the rhythms of a smaller operation and what it demands from a driver who wants to compete.
Here's the thing about West Coast drivers in NASCAR: they don't just show up. They CHOOSE this. The California racing ecosystem produces talent for IndyCar, sports cars, road racing, the international ladder — there are options, real options, for a kid from Bakersfield who can drive a race car. The oval short track world of NASCAR's ladder is a specific, deliberate path that requires a driver to decide he wants this kind of racing and no other kind.
Perkins decided. Six years ago and every day since.
What that choice means in practice is that Perkins arrived at the OARS with a road racer's precision and had to layer on top of it everything that short track racing demands — the feel of a banked concrete oval, the rhythm of restarts on half-miles, the way Bristol specifically will eat a car that isn't set up perfectly for the track's unusual combination of steep banking and tight radius. You do not walk into Thunder Valley from the California road racing world and immediately feel at home. You earn it, race by race, year by year.
His 2025 season was the best evidence yet that the earning is paying off. Four top-10 finishes — a career high. A sixth-place run at Talladega, where the superspeedway rewards drivers who can manage a drafting pack and find the right moment to commit. That Talladega result is interesting: it says Perkins has the racing instincts to compete in a discipline that is genuinely different from anything he grew up doing. Adapting is the skill. He has it.
Through eight 2026 races, the No. 31 sits 18th in points with 122. That's above the cutline for now, meaning Perkins is technically in the Chase conversation — though with six months of racing ahead, the standings at Race 8 are more of a baseline than a prediction. Jordan Anderson Racing will need consistent top-fifteen finishes to keep pace with the organizations that outspend them two to one. That's the reality of running an independent program in this series, and Perkins has been living that reality long enough to not be surprised by it.
What he does have — and this is not nothing — is the full support of an organization that has invested in him across multiple seasons. JAR isn't cycling through drivers looking for the right fit. They brought Perkins back because they know what he gives them: preparation, consistency, and the kind of car knowledge that only accumulates through repetition. The No. 31 is not a lottery ticket. It's a program built around a driver they believe in.
The question that follows Perkins — the same question that follows every independent team driver in the OARS — is whether belief alone is enough when the gap in resources is real and measurable. At Talladega, it can be. At short tracks like Bristol, it sometimes can be. At the big intermediate tracks where raw horsepower and aero packages separate the first tier from the second, the gap is harder to close by out-thinking your competitors.
But here's what two thousand miles and six years of showing up buys you: credibility. The paddock knows who Blaine Perkins is. The series knows what he can do. And Bristol is a short track, where the racing is close and the setups matter more than the budget, and a driver who has been around long enough to know what the car needs on old tires at the end of a run has a real chance to steal something.
Bakersfield to Bristol. The long way around.
The No. 31 is ready to make the trip worth it.