A regular in Supercars as a co-driver, Perkins was given a late call to drive for Joe Gibbs Racing in the second-division series – getting an early debut ahead of a pre-planned Portland race.
He stunned in practice with the fourth fastest time before qualifying fifth, 0.840s away from pole position winner Shane van Gisbergen.
However, his hopes of a solid showing in the race were dashed when JR Motorsports’ Sammy Smith tipped the #19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota Supra into a spin and backwards into a concrete wall.
Speaking with Speedcafe post-race, Perkins explained the circumstances that led up to the untimely incident.
“For whatever reason, when they put the car back into race trim after qualifying we were really struggling through Turn 1 and Turn 6, the two left-handers. They call it ‘tight’ here, but I just had massive understeer,” said Perkins, who was classified 32nd.
“I was trying to change the brake bias and get some more performance out of it through those two left-handers, but it was making me very vulnerable into Turn 1 and into Turn 6.
“I didn’t see, and didn’t have any call from the spotter, that someone was up the inside. I looked in the mirror, he (Smith) wasn’t on the inside and I got tagged in the back and spun around.
“It’s just disappointing. Just didn’t need to happen at that stage of the race.”
Perkins suffered significant damage to his Toyota Supra stock car, which relegated him to the pit lane for repairs.
He returned to the race but suffered a left rear puncture due as a hangover from the damage. In the end, he wound up four laps down on race winner van Gisbergen.
Perkins said the crash wasn’t a great surprise to his Joe Gibbs Racing team or teammates, who said they had been on the receiving end of incidents from the same driver all season.
“I’ve spoken to lots of guys since. Ty Gibbs rang me and said, ‘Hey, you know, it’s just the Xfinity Series and there are some idiots out there’.
“It’s just a shame that happened to us. Obviously, we’ve travelled a long way and put a lot of effort together and pulled a heap of Australian sponsors together.
“I just wanted to roll around because that guy ended up finishing fifth and if we finished fifth we would have been over the moon.
“We can’t unscramble the egg now and it is what it is. So the positives are that we were fast in and we really love working with the Joe Gibbs team and it puts us in a great spot now for Portland. We go to Portland with a view of being very, very competitive.”
A look at the incident involving @jack_perkins … as well as issues for his teammate, @WilliamSawalich. pic.twitter.com/F4Ipwx3pjm
— NASCAR Xfinity (@NASCAR_Xfinity) July 5, 2025
That practice and qualifying pace is reason for optimism, especially given the Portland race will not feature Chicago winner van Gisbergen.
Perkins said he went into the weekend without any expectations but was pleasantly surprised.
“It’s really hard to sort of set your goals at professional motor racing level. It’s very rare that you go to a race and you’ve never driven the car, so that was just so hard to get your head around setting any expectations,” he said.
“I thought I could probably look at all the previous results at Chicago, I thought if I could get within six or seven tenths of Shane, that that’s probably not a bad effort. I reckon I’m probably half a second off him in Australia, so that’s sort of what I thought.
“We just didn’t get the most out of it in qualifying, unfortunately. On the first run, I just underdrove the car and then you don’t get to change tyres, you’ve gotta try and let them cool down and go again.
“So I went again and went quicker and drove it better, but just didn’t have the tyre underneath me. I would love to do qualifying again. I think we would have been second or third if we had a chance, but we didn’t, and we can’t predict that.
“Obviously to be fifth on the grid on NASCAR debut was a really cool feeling. Just disappointing. We wanted to have a clean race and we didn’t get that, but we got to the checkered flag and it gave us good mileage for the next race we’re doing in the original one we had planned in Portland.”
Perkins will return to the Xfinity Series with Joe Gibbs Racing on August 31 (AEST) for the Pacific Office Automation 147 at Portland.
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