NASCAR Sprint Cup Series drivers Denny Hamlin and Matt Kenseth compete in the NASCAR XFINITY Series as well for Joe Gibbs Racing, but two young upcoming drivers have been carrying the program recently.
Erik Jones, 18, has logged top-five finishes in his last four XFINITY Series starts, including a victory at Texas, while Daniel Suarez, 23, placed runner-up last week at Bristol (the highest series finish by a Mexico-born driver).
Both NASCAR Next alumni, along with Hamlin, are entered in Friday’s ToyotaCare 250 at Richmond International Raceway (7:30 p.m. ET on FOX Sports 1).
Suarez finished 19th in his lone start at Richmond last season and owns four NASCAR K&N Pro Series East starts there. He will attempt to improve his 10th-place position in the XFINITY Series points standings.
“We’re feeling really good and our confidence is very high heading into Richmond,” Suarez said. “You have to work hard in order to get good results in racing and that’s what we’ve been doing, little by little. We’ve been working on getting faster and it was evident in Texas and Bristol. We don’t expect this weekend to be any different.”
Jones hops into the No. 54 car for injured Kyle Busch. He has never raced at Richmond in any of NASCAR’s series, but has confidence in his team and equipment.
“JGR has had a lot of success at Richmond over the past few years,” Jones said. I think we have a pretty good program on the XFINITY side right now to try and go and grab another win. Tackling the new track, I’ll probably pick Kyle’s (Busch) brain for some information, but overall I feel like we’ll have a good enough race car that it will make it easier on me as a driver to figure it out.”
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