BROOKLYN, Mich. – On pit lane, Erik Jones climbed out of his car and held his son David, giving him a high-five. The Michigan native fell just shy of winning at his home track, running second to Denny Hamlin in the FireKeepers Casino 400 at Michigan International Speedway on June 7.
“I mean we needed a good finish,” Jones later said on pit road. “We’ve been running well. We just haven’t finished the race as well, and so that part’s nice.”
The speed from Jones was evident all weekend. The No. 43 Toyota took the green flag in 13th, and in a stage two run, Jones drove all the way up to second, appearing as the fastest car on the track.
“We didn’t really fluke into second,” said Jones. “We ran up front all day and had a car capable to win, and it just didn’t quite play out.”
After his run to second in the second stage, Jones lost a handful of spots on pit road. The final stage struggled to find rhythm, with back-to-back-to-back crashes that ate up a large number of laps.
“It got chaotic with a lot of yellows and restarts and they didn’t go our way a couple of times and we got a little farther back,” he continued. “Denny got up front and he was gone.
“I’m happy to have a good run and I think good momentum. I think just, been feeling good in the car and feeling like I know what I need to do and feeling loose and that’s a good thing.”
Jones flirted with a top-10 finish at Nashville Superspeedway, ultimately winding up second. There, he mentioned that he felt his Legacy Motor Club team is close to having what he needs to contend for wins.
“We definitely have something to build off of, “Jones said. “I think I’m confident every time I’m showing up to the track that the cars are good. There was a stretch where that was a question where I didn’t know what I was going to be getting into.
“Now I feel like I can hop in and like I said, just be loose, hammer down, not think about it and drive as fast as I can drive and tell them what it needs. That’s a good feeling as a driver. Just hope it continues going forward and we can keep making it better.”
A Michigan native has never won a race at Michigan International Speedway. A runner-up result for Jones leaves a mixture of emotions.
“It’s bittersweet in some ways to be that close all day,” Jones said. He felt his team had a chance to win, but things just didn’t fall his way.
“You think about what it could have been, but yeah, it’s a good day. We just needed a little more.”
Trending toward a speedy summer, Jones has faith that he and the No. 43 team can capture a checkered flag this NASCAR Cup Series season.
“It’s a lot to ask to run one race up front in the year and say we should win it, but we keep doing this, we will win one,” he said. “I think we have better cars right now and more speed. I think some of those races last year we really grinded out a good finish. Some of these races that we’ve had in the last month, it really hasn’t been a grind. We’ve just been fast and been taking advantage of it.”
Bringing an expectation of speed into the track is a game-changer for Jones when he hops into the car each week.
“My confidence is way up right now, which is great,” he continued. “As a driver, you can just hop in and feel good about things, and so I think that’s the big difference is feeling confident in what’s going on in the direction of what’s happening and knowing that the momentum is going to just carry us here.”
Caleb began sports writing in 2023 with The Liberty Champion, where he officially covered his first NASCAR race at Richmond in the spring. While there, Caleb met some of the guys from Frontstretch, and he joined the video editing team after graduating from Liberty University with degrees in Strategic Communications and Sports Journalism. Caleb currently work full-time as a Multi-Media Journalist with LEX 18 News in Lexington, Kentucky and contributes to Frontstretch with writing and video editing. He's also behind-the-scenes or on camera for the Happy Hour Podcast, live every Tuesday night at 7:30!
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