March 18, 2024

Jones close to giving Kyle Busch Motorsports a championship

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Erik Jones started this year as one of the most promising rookies on NASCAR’s national level.

With one more clean race, he can end the season with his first championship.

Jones will try to close out the Truck Series championship on Friday night in the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway, where he needs to finish 15th or better to clinch. Should he succeed, he would give Kyle Busch Motorsports its first driver championship.

Jones was part of the two-driver lineup with Busch last year that won KBM the Truck Series owner championship. It was Busch’s third win as an owner, but he’s never had a driver win the title for the organization.

“Obviously, I want to win the championship, but Kyle’s wanted a driver’s championship since he started his program in the Truck Series and hasn’t been able to get it yet,” Jones said. “If I could bring that back for him, you know, that’d kind of be just a nice ‘thank you’ for the last three years and what he’s done for me over those three years.”

It’s been a wild three years for the 19-year-old Jones, considered a nobody in the racing world when he showed up for the first time in 2012 at Five Flags Speedway in Pensacola, Florida, for the annual Snowball Derby.

The event has always been one of Busch’s favorites and its storied history has made it one of the more coveted trophies in racing.

When a then-16-year-old Jones used a last-second pass to beat Busch, the NASCAR star was convinced he wanted him at KBM.

Jones made five starts in Busch’s truck in 2013 and earned his first career national series victory with a win at Phoenix. He added three more wins for Busch last year as the two teamed to win the owner’s title, and he got three starts in a Joe Gibbs Racing car in the Xfinity Series.

But this has been his breakout year. Jones has three wins and a 19-point lead over Tyler Reddick with the final trucks race remaining. He added a pair of wins for Gibbs in the Xfinity car and also got three coveted Sprint Cup Series races. He was a mid-race replacement for Denny Hamlin at Bristol when Hamlin injured his neck, and he raced the last two weeks for suspended driver Matt Kenseth.

Busch is now excited to watch Jones close out the year and potentially give KBM another title.

“We knew that we had a great opportunity to go for a championship this year,” Busch said. “It has worked out so far and we have one more week to see that come to fruition and celebrate our first driver and owner championship together, and being able to be the only truck team on stage at the banquet.

“The pressure is off of me, it’s on Erik. It’s fun to see our, mine and Samantha’s (Busch, wife), organization run like that and compete for championships and to ultimately score our first driver’s championship this week would be pretty special.”