Following fill-in role, 18-year-old ready for another chance -- whenever that is
RICHMOND, Va. -- Erik Jones drove a lopsided majority of last weekend's NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race as an emergency fill-in for ailing Denny Hamlin at Bristol Motor Speedway. The official box score after that whirlwind Sunday, however, still showed Hamlin as the driver of record in the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 11 Toyota.
After a debut deferred, the 18-year-old Jones keeps inching closer to his first official big-league start. If the rumblings in the garage have legs, the first go-round could come as early as May 9 at Kansas Speedway in place of injured Kyle Busch in JGR's No. 18. If that's the plan, Jones says he'll take it as it comes.
"I don't know. That's really up to them. I haven't heard anything yet, and if they do, great," Jones told NASCAR.com after NASCAR XFINITY Series practice at Richmond International Raceway. "I'd love to try it. I think we could go out and run well, but I'm pretty focused on what we've got here on the XFINITY deal and even the truck side coming up here in a few weeks. Yeah, I'd love to try it but it's really up to them at the end of the day."
Jones, a member of the NASCAR Next youth initiative, has impressed thus far in other NASCAR national series, winning four times in the Camping World Truck Series and prevailing in just his ninth XFINITY Series start two weeks ago at Texas Motor Speedway. His aptitude was why he got the call to replace Hamlin, who exited after 22 laps with complaints of neck pain and spasms during a four-hour rain delay at Bristol.
Despite having to restart at the rear of the field because of the driver change, hopping into a Sprint Cup car completely green for the first time and contending with an unfamiliar cockpit, Jones completed the race with a relatively unscathed car on a day and night of mass carnage.
While Jones has proven to be a quick study behind the wheel, the magnitude of his experience with the ultimate rung in the NASCAR ladder has just now sunk in, five days later.
"It's definitely a big step," Jones said. "You walk over to the Cup shop and you see how much more they've got involved and how much more intense it really is, and you realize why the competition level is the way it is. It wasn't easy, by any means, especially at Bristol and starting 38th where we did, but we muscled through it and made laps. I learned a ton. I wish I could've started the day over and do it again, really, but it was a pretty cool experience overall.
"It was cool to race with some of those guys and see where they're at on the competition level. They're all such great race car drivers, and the teams are all so much better than people realize. Even the cars you see as slow cars on a Sunday are really pretty fast at the end of the day. Definitely interesting to see that side of things."
Seeing more of how the Sprint Cup side lives would be contingent on more dominos falling in the Sprint Cup garage, with Michael Waltrip Racing's No. 55 ride and Front Row Motorsports' No. 34 car currently fielding a rotating cast of interim drivers. Such a move would also add more workload to Jones' busy schedule -- a part-time XFINITY Series campaign and a full-time slate in the Truck Series.
Any extra seat time is OK by Jones.
"I think we've got a lot of good things that are going to happen," Jones said, "and I'm excited to be a part of them."
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