Erik Jones / No. 20 Sport Clips Toyota Camry Preview Bojangles’ Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway

DARLINGTON, SC (Aug. 27, 2019)

No. 20 Sport Clips Toyota Camry News and Notes:

·        JONES AT DARLINGTON RACEWAY: Erik Jones will make his third-career Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series start at Darlington Raceway this weekend for the Bojangles’ Southern 500 driving the No. 20 Sport Clips Toyota Camry. In his previous two starts at the South Carolina track, Jones has a best finish of fifth in 2017 and an eighth-place finish in 2018. In addition to his strong runs in the Cup Series, Jones has two top-10 finishes at the track in the Xfinity Series with a best finish of fourth in 2017.

·        JGR AT DARLIGNTON RACEWAY: Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) has 84 total starts at Darlington Raceway in Cup Series competition. In those starts, the team has earned six wins, 22 top-five finishes, 50 top-10 finishes and two pole starting positions. The team has led 1,389 laps, completed 28,279 of 28,997 attempted laps (97.5%) and earned an average start of 14.2 and an average finish of 11.7. Denny Hamlin has two wins for the team followed by Bobby Labonte, Kyle Busch, Matt Kenseth and Carl Edwards with one win each.  

·        CHASING 100: Jones will make his 100th-career Cup Series start this weekend at Darlington Raceway. Jones made his official Cup Series debut at Kansas Speedway in 2015 filling in for the injured Kyle Busch.

·        THIS WEEK ON THE NO. 20 CAMRY: This week Sport Clips returns to the No. 20 Toyota Camry for the night race at Bristol Motor Speedway. Bojangles’ Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway.

·        THROWING IT BACK: In line with the throwback tradition at Darlington Raceway and honoring his 100th Cup Series start, Jones and Sport Clips will throw it back to Jones’ first full body paint scheme from 2010. The black and red scheme was designed by Jones and was the scheme that he was driving when he won his first late-model race. Dreaming of becoming a top-tier driver at the top level of NASCAR, Jones accomplished that dream in 2017 and just nine years after designing that paint scheme, Jones will pilot it at Darlington Raceway for the Bojangles’ Southern 500.

·        BRISTOL RACE RECAP: Qualifying in the ninth position for the night race at Bristol Motor Speedway, Jones worked his way in to the top five and led 23 laps before a late-race incident dropped the No. 20 Camry from the lead lap and relegated Jones to a 22nd-place finish.  

·        RACE INFO: The Bojangles’ Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway is scheduled for Sunday, September 1, 2019. Coverage will begin at 6:00 p.m. ET on NBCSN, MRN, SIRIUS XM Channel 90 and NBC Sports App.

Jones Career NASCAR Cup Series Stats at Darlington Raceway: 

Jones 2019 Season NASCAR Cup Series Stats:

Jones Career NASCAR Cup Series Stats:

From the Driver’s Seat:

Erik Jones: “This year going to Darlington, I have a really cool throwback paint scheme and one that is pretty personal to me. For my 100th start in the Cup Series, I wanted to do something neat for Darlington and picked my first full body scheme that I ran in 2010 when I started racing late-models. It’s a simple paint scheme, but it’s really clean and sharp and one I always liked. I won my first late-model race in that paint scheme when I was 14.  It’s a neat way to look back to a few years ago to where we were racing locally and now being at the top level of NASCAR and racing in a race like the Southern 500 is pretty special. It’s a nostalgic thing for me and I’m looking forward to it. Thanks to Gordon Logan and everyone at Sport Clips for giving me the opportunity to run this scheme. I’ve always enjoyed that they let me have a hand in picking the throwback scheme each year and this one is pretty special and means a lot to me.”

From the Pit Box:

Chris Gayle: “Darlington’s “throwback” weekend is always a pretty cool event. It adds something unique to an already great and history filled track and event. The race track surface provides very unique racing with the car handling and overall grip level of the cars changing a lot from the first few laps on tires to the end of a stint on fuel. It typically provides lots of passing and a bigger speed differential between good and bad handling cars. It’s going to be very interesting to see how this type of surface and lap time degradation plays out with the new aero package at this race track. We had a very strong performance at this track last year, and Erik has been showing rapid improvement at this track in each season he’s raced there. So we’re looking forward to going there this weekend and continuing the improvement, and hopefully “taming” the Lady in Black. It’s pretty neat to see that this is Erik’s 100th start on the Cup side. Lots of learning and up’s and down’s thru the first 100 for both of us. Looking forward to putting all that experience of the first 100 to use in the second 100 of our careers!”