Erik Jones celebrated his high-school graduation at the Texas Motor Speedway last June in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series for Kyle Busch Motorsports. Fast forward 10 months later and he scores his first career victory in the NASCAR XFINITY Series. Since that debut, Jones has picked up several wins in the truck series and now races full-time in the series for the championship. This is the first XFINITY Series win for the Joe Gibbs Racing organization in 2015.
Tonight was one of the scheduled races for Jones in the No. 20 Toyota. However, with Kyle Busch out of the No. 54 Monster Energy Toyota due to a crash at Daytona in the season opener, Jones will make more starts in the series than expected. With that said, Jones can say he is now a winner in both series.
“I don’t even know what to say right now,” Jones said in his victory lane interview. “Confidence is something that I have never lacked in myself. I always believed in myself and to get here in victory lane at Texas in the XFINITY Series is amazing. That’s huge. That’s huge for us, that’s huge for our team and I believed in these guys from the start. I knew that this was going to be a good deal. I think we will be seeing this more often.”
Jones started the evening from the pole and led 79 of the 200 laps. The win did not come easy as he battled with numerous Sprint Cup Series veterans all night long, including Dale Earnhardt Jr.
With a late race restart with 26 laps left, Jones had to hold off 2010 XFINITY and 2012 Sprint Cup Series champion Brad Keselowski on his outside. He didn’t let him get inside his head as he quickly got around Keselowski for the lead. Once he got clear, there was no stopping him.
Keselowski qualified second and went to the rear of the field just before the green flag started the event. He suffered a fuel gauge issue just after the conclusion of qualifying. After nearly 40 laps of racing, Keselowski found himself racing inside the top five. He led 56 laps behind the wheel of his No. 22 Discount Tire Ford.
“The Discount Tire Ford was really fast, but just not quite enough,” Keselowski said to FOX Sports following his second place finish.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. was very happy when the race ended after a third-place finish. Earnhardt led 26 of the 200 laps on Friday.
“The team helped the car quite a bit, and made it semi-competitive,” Earnhardt told FOX Sports 1. “Congratulations to Erik and all of those guys. I thought that Brad had the best car, but Erik took off. I knew he was good.”
Jeff Gordon made his television debut tonight at the Texas Motor Speedway as an analyst. Gordon spoke very highly on Jones throughout the entire event. Numerous veterans have also spoken very highly about the young man.
“We are seeing the future here,” Gordon said with roughly 10 laps to go.
Regan Smith ended the night as the highest finishing XFINITY Series regular. Smith will take home a fourth-place finish in the O’Reilly Auto Parts 300. Austin Dillon rounded out the top five.
Joe Gibbs Racing won 10 times in 2014. This is their first win of the 2015 season and what could be the first of many for Jones and company.
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