Erik Jones is driving for his second team in his second full-time NASCAR Cup Series season. When will he earn his first victory?
Erik Jones, 22, made his debut in the NASCAR Cup Series as an 18-year-old in the race at Kansas Speedway in Kansas City, Kansas in May of 2015. He drove the #18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota as the replacement for the injured Kyle Busch.
Busch was out as a result of the fact that he broke his right leg and left foot in a crash during the 2015 Xfinity Series season opener at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida. He ended up returning to the seat of the #18 Toyota the race after Jones made his Cup Series debut as the driver of the car, and he ended up winning the 2015 Cup Series championship.
However, Jones also made two more starts toward the end of the 2015 season as the replacement driver for Matt Kenseth. Kenseth was suspended for two races. the playoff races at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth, Texas and ISM Raceway (then Jeff Gordon Raceway) in Avondale, Arizona as a result of the fact that he deliberately wrecked Joey Logano at Martinsville Speedway in Martinsville, Virginia to get revenge against Logano for an incident in which the two drivers were involved at Kansas Speedway earlier in the playoffs.
At the end of the day, Jones only started his first three career Cup Series races in the 2015 season as a result of bad situations surrounding two of Joe Gibbs Racing’s four full-time drivers. He ended up landing his first full-time ride in the Cup Series in the 2017 season as a the driver of the #77 Furniture Row Racing Toyota.
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Furniture Row Racing, the team that have a technical alliance with Joe Gibbs Racing, added a second full-time car to their team for the first time in their history, which began back in the 2005 season, and they did so specifically for the 2015 Truck Series champion, who drove full-time for Kyle Busch Motorsports in the #4 Toyota in the 2015 Truck Series season before driving full-time for Joe Gibbs Racing in the #20 Toyota in the 2016 Xfinity Series season.
While Jones did not make the playoffs, he did have a very solid rookie season as a Cup Series driver. He recorded 14 top 10 finishes and five top five finishes, and he ended up finishing in 19th place in the championship standings as the third highest driver who failed to qualify for the playoffs.
Three of Jones’s five top five finishes were podium finishes, and he recorded a career-high second place finish at Bristol Motor Speedway after starting the race from the pole position, his first career pole position, and leading 260 of its 500 laps.
Jones replaced Kenseth in the #20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota full-time for the 2018 season. Through 15 races so far this season, his statistics aren’t that great, as he has recorded five top 10 finishes and one top five finish, which was a fourth place finish at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth, Texas. He is on pace to end the season with fewer top 10 finishes and fewer top five finishes than he ended up with last season.
However, Jones has actually been decent overall this season even though those statistics currently do not exactly show it. He has an average finishing position of 17.2, which is only slightly lower than the average finishing position of 17.1 that he recorded last season.
Jones’s average starting position so far this season is 10.7, which is not only better than the starting position of 14.6 that he recorded last season, but it also shows that his average finishing position has tons of room to grow and should likely do so in the very near future since he is driving for one of the sport’s top teams.
If the season ended today, Jones would, unlikely last season, actually be in the playoffs as well, as he currently sits in 14th place in the championship standings. While he is very close to the playoff cut line, I believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that he will improve over the course of the final 11 races of the regular season, get into the playoffs, and secure at least one victory, his first career Cup Series victory, at some point before all 36 races of the season are in the books.
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Will Erik Jones win his first NASCAR Cup Series race before his second full-time season with his second team wraps up in mid-November at Homestead-Miami Speedway in Homestead, Florida? If not, how much longer will he have to wait before he gets to victory lane in a Cup Series race?