CLUB NOTES
Easter with family: With the NASCAR Cup Series racing on Easter Sunday again this year, Erik Jones will take the time to celebrate his racing family. Before the race on Sunday, Jones will treat the No. 43 team, family and friends to an Easter meal at Richmond.
READwithErik: Jones will appear in the NASCAR Kid’s Zone for a book reading at Richmond Raceway on Sunday, March 31. This at-track edition of #READwithErik will feature a special furry friend, as Jones will read “How To Catch the Easter Bunny” by Adam Wallace to children and families in attendance at 4:00 p.m. on race day.
Second Cup start: This weekend marks John Hunter Nemechek’s second career NASCAR Cup Series start at Richmond Raceway. Over the last three years (2021-2023) in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, Nemechek has finished in the top-three at Richmond Raceway (a third place and two seconds consecutively.) He has completed all but one lap (1,499 out of 1,500) – which is impressive for a short track – and has led 182 laps. Nemechek has an average finish of seventh in his six starts at the 0.75-mile Virginia short track.
Dollar Tree’s Gold Star: Primary partner Dollar Tree will honor Richmond-based store #2335 this weekend as a part of the company’s “Go For G.O.L.D.” (Grand Opening Look Daily) program. The Dollar Tree and Family Dollar primaries will highlight these stores on the deck lid of all three LEGACY M.C. entries throughout the race season.
Familiar colors: The No. 42 Safeway Toyota Camry XSE will have a similar paint scheme that was seen in Las Vegas and Phoenix, but with a slight twist. The No. 42 will have bold red stripes across the side of this week’s entry as Nemechek will represent Safeway and ACME in Richmond.
National Reading Month: The Erik Jones Foundation (EJF) has been celebrating National Reading Month throughout March by auctioning off books that Jones read during the #READwithErik program on Facebook. Anyone interested in learning more about the program and books available for auction can check out the listings here. The proceeds from this event will directly support the mission of the EJF.
Running at Richmond: Jones has four starts in the Xfinity Series at Richmond Raceway. During these starts, Jones has not started outside of the top 10 and has only finished outside of the top five once. Jones holds an average start of 3.8 and an average finish of 11.3 in the Xfinity Series at Richmond.
Xfinity success: Crew chief, Dave Elenz, has an impressive resume at Richmond Raceway in the Xfinity Series. Elenz boasts two wins (2016 and 2021), three top-five, and nine top-10 finishes with 166 laps led in 13 attempts.
NASCAR Q&A: Nemechek will join host Monica Palumbo on race day at Richmond for a Q&A session at 5:00 pm local time on the Victory Lane Stage in the infield fan grounds.
Move over Jones: LEGACY M.C.’s No. 43 mechanic, David Cropps, tackled Salisbury, N.C.’s local dirt track Milbridge Speedway on Monday night during the A1 Feature Buggy race. Cropps qualified 15th for the 50-lap event and raced his way into the top 10, where he finished seventh with a handful of the LEGACY M.C. CLUB members in attendance. Among those at the track was Jones, who can be seen celebrating the top-10 finish in the CLUB’s photo of the week.
CLUB QUOTES
John Hunter Nemechek, Driver of the No. 42 Safeway Toyota Camry XSE:
“Richmond has been one of my favorite racetracks to go to for some time now. I won there in the Truck Series and ran second in Xfinity a few times, so I should have won a few more but gave a few away. Overall Richmond really just fits my driving style tire degradation and fall off being able to manage your equipment a lot of different lines being a day-to-night race. But Richmond feels like a short track that I used to race on coming through the Late Model ranks. I’ve hit the SIM this week and am working with Ben and Trevor (Bayne) on preparation so we are ready.”
Ben Beshore, Crew chief of the No. 42 Safeway Toyota Camry XSE:
“Regarding the tire fall off, at times you are at the mercy of what everyone else is doing just in the sense if you get off strategy and are the only one on a certain strategy then you have to do a lot of passing. Richmond has a lot of tire fall off and managing tire fall off is huge so having to put any extra stress on the tires is not a good thing. Staying on the top of our game, is key.”
Erik Jones, Driver of the No. 43 Dollar Tree Toyota Camry XSE:
Talk about the new short-track package and how you hope to see it perform at Richmond.
“The new package is obviously a lot different. I think Richmond will be a great test for it to see how much it has improved in traffic or hasn’t. At Richmond, we have qualified well and had speed; we just need to have more speed during the race, so hopefully, we can go there and figure that out. I am hoping that the new package gives us the opportunity to move around and try some different stuff.”
Dave Elenz, Crew chief of the No. 43 Dollar Tree Toyota Camry XSE:
Talk about the difference in setup when you are looking at this run of short tracks.
“It’s nice that we have a stretch of short tracks to work on our short track program and get it a little bit better. Phoenix went really well for us and we hope to bring some of that stuff into Richmond; there is a little bit of carryover to Martinsville, but not as much. Richmond and Phoenix are pretty close, so we feel like we have a good start there. Bristol has some higher loads and less braking into the corners, so it doesn’t really transfer into Richmond as much as Phoenix will for us, but we are excited based on our results from Phoenix and looking forward to a good Easter weekend at Richmond.”
LMC PR
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