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

DARLINGTON, SC

No. 20 Sport Clips Toyota Camry News and Notes:

·        JONES AT DARLINGTON RACEWAY: Erik Jones and the No. 20 Sport Clips team return to Darlington Raceway as the defending Southern 500 winners after capturing the coveted victory in 2019. With five starts at the South Carolina track, Jones has one win, three top-five finishes and all five finishes in the top eight. Jones has led 106 laps and has an average finish of 5.4. In addition to his Cup Series starts, Jones has two starts in the Xfinity Series with one top-five finish and two top-six finishes with an average finish of 5.0. This weekend Jones and the No. 20 team look to earn back-to-back Southern 500 victories and their first win of the 2020 season.

·        JGR AT DARLINGTON RACEWAY: Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) has 96 total starts at Darlington Raceway in Cup Series competition. In those starts, the team has earned eight wins, 28 top-five finishes, 59 top-10 finishes and two pole starting positions. The team has led 1,650 laps, completed 31,738 of 32,469 attempted laps (97.7%) and earned an average start of 14.5 and an average finish of 11.4. Denny Hamlin leads the team with three victories followed by Bobby Labonte, Kyle Busch, Matt Kenseth, Carl Edwards and Jones with one win each.  

·        THIS WEEK ON THE NO. 20 CAMRY: For this weekend’s throwback race at Darlington Raceway, the No. 20 Toyota Camry will carry the familiar colors of Sport Clips, but the scheme will honor NASCAR champion and former driver of the No. 20, Tony Stewart. Jones picked Stewart’s orange and silver Home Depot scheme from Martinsville Speedway in 2005. Stewart was one of the first NASCAR driver’s Jones met at a young age when Stewart made an appearance at a Home Depot store during his time in the No. 20 car. Always a fan of the champion driver, the choice was easy when looking at past champions and selecting a former driver of JGR and the No. 20 car.

·        STARTING LINE UP: Erik Jones and the No. 20 Toyota Camry team will start Sunday’s Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway from the 30th position.

·        DAYTONA RECAP:  For the last regular season race, teams unloaded at the high-banked Daytona International Speedway. Jones and the No. 20 team started the race from 20th, led laps early in the race and were in position to contend for the win with less than 10 laps to go. Unfortunately, while running third on lap 151, Jones was involved in the first “Big One” when Tyler Reddick attempted to clear Kyle Busch for the lead and caused a multi-car accident. The damage to the No. 20 team was too severe for Jones to continue and ended his day with a 35th-place finish. 

·        RACE INFO: The Cook Out Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway is scheduled for Sunday, September 6, 2020. Coverage of the race will begin at 6:00 p.m. ET on NBC, Sirius XM Channel 90 and MRN Radio.

Jones Career NASCAR Cup Series Stats at Darlington Raceway:

Jones 2020 Season NASCAR Cup Series Stats:

Jones Career NASCAR Cup Series Stats:

From the Driver’s Seat: 

Erik Jones: “I’m looking forward Darlington again and getting back to the Southern 500. The Southern 500 is such a cool race and coming off the win there last year was really special. Being able to go back to a place that you’ve won before is always somewhat of a confidence boost. I feel like we’ve always had a pretty good set up and package at Darlington and I feel like I have a pretty good idea of how to get around that place and manage the race well. We had a pretty fast car there in the two races we ran at Darlington early this year, especially the night race which was encouraging with this being a night race as well. I’m excited to get out there with our Sport Clips throwback scheme and see if we can go out and get another Southern 500 win.”