ERIK JONES, No. 18 M&M’s Red Nose Day Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
What are you doing to prepare for both the NSCS and NCWTS races this weekend?
“I watched quite a few videos from last year’s race – not only on the Cup side, but the truck side too. Talked to Kyle (Busch), he won the Truck race here last year and on the Cup side he gave me a few tips. He told me to lean on my teammates for that as well. It will be a fun weekend. It will be a busy weekend – this is probably the busiest day of the weekend here today. I’m excited and I’m looking forward to it. I will learn a lot and it will be a good weekend.”
Are you concerned about getting track time with the weather forecast?
“I was a little bit, but we got some truck time yesterday, which was nice. We got enough there I feel like. My main concern honestly was that I felt like the truck was going to be good enough and I felt confident enough in the truck that we’d be fine there, but I want to get a lot of seat time in the Cup car obviously. I feel like we’ll get practice in today – I looked at the radar there a few minutes ago and it looks fairly clear. Hopefully we can get laps in and I just really want to make a lot of laps. Hopefully we can go out and make long runs most of the day and we can stay in race trim most of the day. Just let me go and feel it out and get a feel for the car and see if I can pick up speed just going out and running laps. That was our big goal today was just to make laps and figure out how to drive the track and adjust our car to make it a little better and just see what we can do.”
How excited are you to make your first official NSCS start in the SpongeBob SquarePants race?
“That’s pretty good and pretty funny. It will be fun. It’s a cool race track and this is my first time here and being on track yesterday was my first time on the track. It’s a pretty neat track. I was watching the race from last year – the Cup race – and the groove widened out, which was cool to see. They got all the way up to the wall so hopefully we can do the same thing in our race this weekend. It will be fun – two races, double duty – that’s fun anytime you can do that. It will just honestly be a learning weekend overall in a lot of ways and just excited to get going.”
What made you believe you’re ready for this NSCS opportunity from the race in Bristol?
“Obviously, that was a tough situation to be put in and I felt like if we could have started farther up front and not all the way at the back that we could have possibly finished a little better than we did. I felt pretty comfortable in the car by the end of the day, which was nice especially at Bristol – that’s a place that I’ve never really felt 100 percent like I’ve got that place figured out. To feel that comfortable in the car there made me feel pretty confident about this weekend. I feel like the mile-and-a-half tracks are something that’s come to me in the past few months and it’s something I’ve figured out a little more, which makes me comfortable about this weekend. I feel really good about it honestly. Bristol was kind of a big test session for me letting me get laps and knock some of that new car, new team rust off and get a good feel for it.”
What did you learn from the race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway?
“Earlier in the year there, that was a race that I knew we had a car that was fast enough to win so let’s take advantage of it and make it happen. For most of the day honestly we did a lot of great work in the pits, on the race track, making things go the way they needed to and unfortunately just circumstances out of our control ended our day. I learned a lot that day about not only the feel I needed in those cars to go fast and make speed, but some of the other things as well with racing around other cars, racing side-by-side, racing behind and around traffic and I think that was a pretty big learning day for me to get more comfortable in a car on a mile-and-a-half. I think I can take a lot of that stuff over to this side of things.”
Has Joe Gibbs Racing discussed your future in the No. 18 Camry past this weekend?
“No, we haven’t yet. Honestly, we haven’t really thought much past this weekend. We’re all hoping Kyle (Busch) can come back, I know he’s ready to come back. Right now, it’s just Kansas and going out and seeing what we can do this weekend.”
How different is the anxiety for this race versus the race at Bristol?
“Bristol, really and honestly I didn’t have time to think about it so it wasn’t much different. I think it’s just the comfort level of everything. I feel like in the Truck Series I’m super comfortable walking into the garage, walking around and knowing where things are. Even the XFINITY Series now, I feel 100 percent comfortable there and any time you go into a new garage with a new team and a new series there’s kind of that level of uncomfortable where you kind of walk in and you’re like, ‘Okay, where’s my place and where do I go, what do I do, where am I supposed to be?’ That kind of fades with time and experience and that’s been my case at least with the other two NASCAR series. There is a little bit more nerves going into the race weekend. I’m not feeling them right now. I’m excited about practice right now honestly and just getting on the track and I’m sure as the race comes around and as we get closer to the start time I’ll be a little bit nervous about getting the green flag and going out and making laps. Right now, feel pretty calm, but there’s definitely more time to think about it.”
Do you feel welcome in the garages as a rookie and what feedback have you received from other drivers?
“Definitely in the Truck and XFINITY garage, I feel like we’ve earned the respect of most of the people over there. Definitely feel welcome when I’m in there. The Cup garage, I don’t know a lot of guys so that will be a big part of this weekend is earning that respect. It’s been nice to hear some of the guys’ compliments after Texas with Brad (Keselowski) and Dale (Earnhardt) Jr. and those guys. It’s always nice to hear that you’re doing things right and doing a good job. I think this weekend is kind of a different focus overall with being in the Cup Series. Earning respect has been a big thing for me in the XFINITY and the Truck Series when I was first getting into them. Even now, getting into the Cup Series it will be a big thing for me too. It’s going to be interesting racing against those guys. I’ve raced against so many guys that I watched on TV growing up for so long and all the guys I looked up to. It will be a pretty cool experience and hope I can learn a lot from them. I know I learned a lot at Bristol just running that race and just sitting in. Excited at what I can learn this weekend.”
What are your thoughts about getting to race against Jeff Gordon in his final season?
“That’s pretty cool. Honestly, I never thought I would get the opportunity at the beginning of the year when he (Jeff Gordon) said he was retiring, I thought that was a bummer for me because I would never get to run against him, but now getting this shot I hope I can go out and race with him a little bit at some point. I caught the tail end of a lot of his dominance at the end of the 2000s and just to see some of that, I was a huge Jeff Gordon fan growing up and always had all his stuff. It was pretty cool to get to know that I’m going to get to race against him this weekend and be on the same track as him. I know at Bristol he was lapping me – I wish I could have been racing him, but it was still pretty cool to see that and see him run on the track and be side-by-side with him for a minute.”
What did you learn in Truck practice yesterday and what do you hope to learn into today’s Cup practice?
“I think with the truck practice, it just kind of helped me kind of get an idea of the track, see the track, get on there and see how the rubber builds up and see where the groove went. We started on such a green track — it was interesting to see what the track did when it rubbered up and we’ll be on another green track this morning in the Cup Series. That was interesting to see and that will help obviously today as it comes in and rubbers up to see what it will do again. I think today the big focus for the two Cup practices is getting me laps. I know there’s many times in the Truck Series and the XFINITY Series where we’ll come in and make short runs, get the car better and then I’ll tell the crew chief, ‘Hey, can I just go make a long run?’ Usually over the course of that run I’ll find a few things for myself that I will be like, ‘Okay, I need to do this and do this.’ I’ll pick up time somewhere in there too. Hopefully the same kind of thing can happen in the Cup Series, we’ll go out and make a few short runs and make sure everything is good and get the car tuned in a little closer and then go out and make some long runs and try to figure out the tendencies of the Cup cars on a mile-and-a-half and try to figure out what’s different about them and race around a few cars and get a feel for everything.”
