SPARTA, Ky. — Brandon Jones will be with Richard Childress Racing’s NASCAR XFINITY Series program in 2016, but this time, he will have a ride all his own.
RCR announced the news on Friday afternoon that the 18-year-old Georgia native will have a full-time ride in the series for next season. The team noted in a release that his crew chief and team will be named at a later date.
“It’s going to be awesome,” Jones told NASCAR.com at Kentucky Speedway. “Been looking forward to that for awhile.”
Jones has gotten his feet wet in the XFINITY Series this year in the team’s No. 33 Chevrolet, which is also driven by NASCAR Sprint Cup Series regulars Austin Dillon and Paul Menard.
The VisitMyrtleBeach.com 300 (Saturday, 8 p.m. ET, NBCSN, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) at Kentucky Speedway marks his fifth start in the series, with his best finish — an eighth-place result — coming in his series debut in May at Iowa Speedway. In Friday’s opening practice, Jones was third-fastest on the speed chart (177.194 mph).
“Brandon’s performance in his limited schedule with RCR this season has been very impressive,” Richard Childress, chairman and chief executive officer of RCR, said in a team release. “We’re thrilled to provide him an opportunity in 2016 to showcase his talents over an entire XFINITY Series season.”
In addition to his XFINITY seat time, Jones has run a pretty steady schedule in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series for GMS Racing in the No. 33 Chevrolet. He has two top fives this season in 11 starts this season, including a runner-up showing at Iowa in June.
The young driver thinks his learning curve will be a bit accelerated with his Truck Series experience at most of the tracks that the XFINITY Series runs at.
“I think there’s going to be five or so tracks I haven’t been to, but that won’t be bad at all,” Jones said. “I’m pretty excited being able to go back to some of these tracks in an XFINITY car.”
For Jones, the deal took some time to come together, but now that it is in place, he is ready to get going.
“We’ve been trying to kind of get a deal together for awhile now,” Jones said. “I’ve been talking to a couple different programs and seeing what our best option was and it all just came together over there. Really proud of everybody that has worked on that so hard and got us going.”