Jones goes from couch to Cup debut
BRISTOL, TENN. Erik Jones has raced well enough in recent months to earn time in a Sprint Cup car.
He got it Sunday night in a most unusual way.
Denny Hamlin started the Food City 500 in the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota as scheduled but could not finish. After rain caused a red-flag delay on lap 22, Hamlin chose not to return to the car for the restart nearly four hours later, saying he was having spasms after apparently “pulling something ” in his neck.
“I just started going backwards at this point, because the pain started bothering me,” Hamlin said as Jones was preparing to race. “We started working on it, doing some stretches, but I’m not 100%. ... It’s better to get Erik (Jones) out there, let him run some laps, get some experience. It’s better to have a race-winning driver out there. I wasn’t in position to do that today.”
Hamlin, who won two weeks ago at Martinsville Speedway, probably already has a spot in the Chase for the Sprint Cup locked up. So he and the team chose not to push it.
Instead, team owner Joe Gibbs called on Jones, who has spent this season racing in the Xfinity and Camping World Truck series.
Jones, an 18-year-old from Byron, Mich., is considered by many to be one of the best stock car racing prospects in any racing series.
Jones finished 26th, six laps down, after a wacky series of rain delays, accidents and frantic racing that meshed leaders and lapped cars in often-difficult combinations.
Hamlin, who was not available for comment after the race, had shooting pains, according to Gibbs.
“We flew Erik over, and he got here with about five minutes to go,” Gibbs said. “It was his first time in a Cup car, and we put him in that situation. I talked to his dad, and he said it was OK. I thought he did a good job.”
Jones called it “a huge learning experience overall. It took me so long figuring out what I had and what I had to do differently from the Xfinity cars. I learned a ton. I wish I could start tonight over and do it again. It was an interesting situation, for sure. I’d never turned a lap in one of these cars until the green flag.”
Jones said he was on his couch at home in North Carolina when he got the phone call to fly to Bristol on a Gibbs plane.
“I was just sitting there thinking about when I was going to get my nap in in the middle of the race,” he said. “I got a call from a crewmember and started packing a bag. They flew me in and helicoptered me to the track, and I drove.”
He scored his first Xfinity victory last week at Texas Motor Speedway and has finishes of fourth, third and fifth in three of the other most recent Xfinity races. In three Camping World Truck Series races this year, he has a second, seventh and third.
Jones won’t get credit for an official Cup start because Hamlin started the race in the No. 11 and will receive the points earned.
Gibbs might consider putting Jones in the No. 18 in place of injured Kyle Busch. David Ragan has been filling in, on loan from Front Row Motorsports.