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CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Of the 12 drivers that make up this year’s NASCAR XFINITY Series Chase field, only three won races during the “regular” season, so the fact that the three appeared to be feeling pretty good about their chances Tuesday during media day activities at the NASCAR Hall of Fame came as no surprise.
Erik Jones, 20, won more races than anyone not named Kyle Busch, four to be exact, and most folks here seemed to agree, some more grudgingly than others, that the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 20 team is the one to beat.
Veteran Elliott Sadler won twice, and the Emporia, Virginia native has been around the track a few times. His career, in fact, was already underway when the Jones family welcomed young Erik into the world. Sadler’s wins in the No. 1 Chevrolet for JR Motorsports came this year at Talladega and Darlington and Sadler is the only guy in the field who can say he was in the inaugural Chase for both the premier series and the XFINITY Series.
Daniel Suarez, Jones’ teammate, earned his first series victory at Michigan. He enters the seven-race playoff, which begins with this weekend’s VisitMyrtleBeach.com 300 at Kentucky Speedway (Saturday, 8 p.m. ET on NBCSN, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), with three top-five finishes in his last four starts. The other result was a top-10 so Suarez and the No. 19 team appear to be on top of their game as well.
No one is conceding anything just yet however. Not the Richard Childress Racing trio of Ty Dillon, Brendan Gaughan or Brandon Jones; Sadler’s JRM teammate Justin Allgaier or Roush Fenway Racing’s Darrell Wallace Jr. and Ryan Reed. Even single-team entrants Brennan Poole (Chip Ganassi Racing), Ryan Sieg (RSS Racing), and Blake Koch (Kaulig Racing) spoke of the potential for advancing from one round to the next and keeping title hopes alive.
“I don’t know if that’s good or bad,” a grinning Sadler said of his dual Chase experience. “I do remember being part of the first ever (Sprint) Cup Chase and now this one. It’s pretty cool.”
The benefits of that 2004 experience are limited, but useful nonetheless.
“It’s not like I’m a seasoned quarterback that can read the defense better than a rookie quarterback,” Sadler said. “I think that’s when experience plays a part. Now it’s just about which teams can get their cars the fastest, what driver can give the best information and not make mistakes on the track. Everybody that’s part of this Chase can do just as good of a job as anybody else, no matter their age or where they are from or how many years they’ve raced. I don’t think that’s a big part of it.
“The only thing I think I know is the difference in the intensity level; that’s the biggest thing I remember about being a part of the (Sprint Cup) Chase. The next week it was like ‘holy cow, it’s flipped the switch.’ Not only racing other guys but your team, what they are going through, the driver, the communication. It’s like everything is set to fast forward … and you have to understand how to communicate at such a different level.”
Jones is coming off a 2015 season that saw the Byron, Michigan native win the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series title, and he’s headed for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series in ’17 as a teammate with Martin Truex Jr. at Furniture Row Racing.
Six times this season, he and Suarez have finished a race with both cars in the top five. In 13 other races, at least one of the two have finished fifth or higher.
The teammate tag doesn’t go out the window with the Chase now at hand. But both, along with 10 others, are racing for a shot at a single prize.
“It’s tough; the teammate deal is always tough in racing,” Jones said. “… There are times when you have to race like teammates and times your race as competitors. It’s a tough balance for sure, but it’s also nice when you go to the race track and you have other drivers to lean on, you can get information from and better each other.
“Hopefully we’re both in Homestead chasing the championship.”
Suarez also understands the benefits that come with a competitive teammate and agreed that “it’s hard to balance out because both of us want to race hard for wins.
“I think we’re going to be in good shape,” he said. “Both of us have a good shot to be competitive every single weekend for the Chase.”