Erik Jones / No. 20 CRAFTSMAN/Sport Clips Toyota Camry Preview FireKeepers Casino 400 at Michigan International Speedway

DETROIT, Michigan (Jun. 5, 2019)

No. 20 CRAFTSMAN/Sport Clips Toyota Camry News and Notes:

·        JONES AT MICHIGAN INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY: In front of his home crowd, Byron, Michigan native Erik Jones will make his fifth start at Michigan International Speedway in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series. In his previous four starts at the track, Jones has earned one top-five finish and one top-10 finish. He has led five laps and has a best finish of third in the August 2017 event. All four of his starts in the Cup Series have resulted in top-15 finishes. In addition to his starts in the Cup Series, Jones has one start in the Xfinity Series where he led 18 laps and finished fourth and one start in the Truck Series where he led 16 laps and finished third.

·        JGR AT MICHIGAN INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY: Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) has 130 total starts at Michigan International Speedway in Cup Series competition. In those starts, the team has earned eight wins, 34 top-five finishes, 58 top-10 finishes and seven pole starting positions. The team has led 1,023 laps, completed 24,006 of 25,221 attempted laps (95.2%) and earned an average start of 14.9 and an average finish of 15.2. Five different drivers have won in the Irish Hills for JGR with Bobby Labonte winning three races followed by Denny Hamlin with two wins and Tony Stewart, Kyle Busch and Matt Kenseth with one win each.

·        THIS WEEK ON THE NO. 20 CAMRY: This week the No. 20 will carry both CRAFTSMAN and Sport Clips as the duo partners together for the ultimate Dad’s Day Giveaway. Visit SportClips.com/DadsDay to enter for your chance to win CRAFTSMAN tools and prizes from Sport Clips. 

·        POCONO RACE RECAP: Jones started the Pocono 400 at Pocono Raceway from the fourth position and earned a strong third-place finish at The Tricky Triangle.

·        ERIK JONES DAY: Fans are invited to attend Erik Jones Day on Byron, Michigan on Saturday, June 15, 2019 from 11 a.m. – 4 p.m. ET. The day will consist of an autograph session, a classic show car, an Adopt a Pet area, show cars, live band, food and much more. Visit ErikJonesRacing.com for more information. 

·        RACE INFO: The FireKeepers Casino 400 at Michigan International Speedway is scheduled for Sunday, June 9, 2019. Coverage will begin at 2:00 p.m. ET on Fox Sports 1, MRN and SIRIUS XM Channel 90.

Jones Career NASCAR Cup Series Stats at Michigan International Speedway:

Jones 2019 Season NASCAR Cup Series Stats:

Jones Career NASCAR Cup Series Stats:

From the Driver’s Seat:

Erik Jones: “Michigan is always two of my favorite races getting back home for a week and spending time with friends and family and also racing at home. It’s always fun to be able to be with that kind of crowd and have the support from not only my friends and family, but the crowd that’s there, always big supporter of myself. That’s a good feeling as a driver. It makes you have a little extra incentive to go out and win that one. It’s definitely a place I would love to grab a win at.” 

From the Pit Box:

Chris Gayle: “I think Michigan will one of the race tracks that we might see a lot more pack racing than we have compared to other intermediate events this year. It’s obviously a home race for Erik and he’d like to run well, but it’s a place we’ve struggled to bring him a really good car except for the fall of 2017. We’ve run decent, and just outside the top 10, but not as good as we expect to run. I think the strength of our performance of late will really show up this weekend in Michigan. JGR as a whole has had very strong cars with the new aero package, and I think that will be the case this weekend as well. I think you’ll see a lot more on throttle time and be able to use more than one groove to complete passing at this race track. It would be a really good place to keep upping our performance and get the 20 team its first win of 2019.”