News: Erik Jones – No. 20 CRAFTSMAN Toyota Camry Preview (MENCS) – Texas Motor Speedway
- 20 CRAFTSMAN Toyota Camry News and Notes:
- JONES AT TEXAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY: Erik Jones will make his sixth-career start at Texas Motor Speedway in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series this weekend for the O’Reilly Auto Parts 500. In his previous five Cup Series starts at the track, Jones has earned two top-five and three top-10 finishes. His best finish is fourth in both races last season. Having seen success at the Fort Worth track across all three national series, Jones has earned one win (out of three starts) in the Truck Series and three wins (out of six starts) in the Xfinity Series.
- JGR AT TEXAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY: Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) has 108 total starts at Texas Motor Speedway in Cup Series competition. In those starts, the team has earned seven wins, 29 top-five finishes, 47 top-10 finishes and five pole starting positions. The team has led 1,822 laps, completed 34,688 of 35,992 attempted laps (96.4%) and earned an average start of 15.1 and an average finish of 15.1. Kyle Busch leads the team with three wins followed by Denny Hamlin with two wins and one win each for Carl Edwards and Tony Stewart.
- PUBLIC APPEARANCE: Erik Jones will be at the Joe Gibbs Racing merchandise trailer in the fan zone at Texas Motor Speedway on Friday, March 29, from 4:00 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. CT. Stop by and pick up the latest swag and meet the driver of the No. 20 Toyota Camry.
- THIS WEEK ON THE NO. 20 CAMRY: This weekend the No. 20 Toyota Camry will feature the CRAFTSMAN brand for the second time the season.
- MARTINSVILLE RECAP: Qualifying in the 18th position for the STP 500 at Martinsville Speedway, Jones showed promise early in the 500 lap race, making his way to the top 10 early in stage two. Unfortunately, the 20 team had their day derailed on a restart on lap 319 where contact from a competitor caused left-side damage to the DEWALT Camry. Jones lost several laps while the team made repairs and finished the race in the 30th position.
- RACE INFO: The O’Reilly Auto Parts 500 at Texas Motor Speedway is scheduled for Sunday, March 31, 2019. Coverage will begin at 3:00 p.m. ET on FOX, Sirius XM Channel 90 and PRN Radio.
Jones Career NASCAR Cup Series Stats at Texas Motor Speedway:
| Starts | Wins | Top 5 | Top 10 | Poles | Laps Led | Avg. Start | Avg. Finish |
| 5 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 64 | 15.8 | 10.4 |
Jones 2019 Season NASCAR Cup Series Stats:
| Starts | Wins | Top 5 | Top 10 | Poles | Laps Led | Avg. Start | Avg. Finish |
| 6 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 17.8 | 16.8 |
Jones Career NASCAR Cup Series Stats:
| Starts | Wins | Top 5 | Top 10 | Poles | Laps Led | Avg. Start | Avg. Finish |
| 81 | 1 | 15 | 34 | 2 | 410 | 12.8 | 15.9 |
From the Driver’s Seat:
Erik Jones: “Texas is one of my favorite tracks and one of the tracks that I’ve run well at in Trucks, Xfinity and the Cup Series. We’ve had a few bad weeks, but we’ve had speed and good cars, just some bad luck along the way. This weekend should be a good race to turn things around and get our season back on track. I think between what we’ve learned so far this season with new package and how I’ve run at Texas in the past, we’ve got a great shot of adding another Texas hat to our collection.”
From the Pit Box:
Chris Gayle: “Texas was a very good track for the 20 team in 2018, finishing inside the top 5 in both events. Although the rules have changed considerably we hope to carry some of that performance over to 2019. The 2019 aero package has really changed qualifying which will be very important with a track like Texas that has been recently repaved, so passing may be tougher. We’ll spend all day on Friday trying to help our performance in qualifying with this new aero package. I think we showed very good speed in the Fontana race with the new rules, but we’ve yet to put a complete, good race together for the full length. We’ll try to make Texas the place we get back on track for 2019.”
