Throughout the past couple of years, NASCAR has seen some of its greats call it a career. It’s beginning to feel like the final race in Miami is not only a championship race but a farewell race.
Most fans are sad to see their favorite drivers retire, but there’s a lot of young talent yet to be seen in the sport. Young drivers like William Byron, Darrell Wallace Jr. and Alex Bowman will be racing in the Cup Series in 2018.
Back for his sophomore season is twenty-one-year-old Erik Jones. In 2017, Jones raced his first full-time Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season for Furniture Row Racing in the No. 77. The 2017 Sunoco Rookie of the Year is going back to a familiar team, Joe Gibbs Racing.
Starting in 2018, Jones is going to pilot the No. 20 car. The No. 20 car has a rich history, as it debuted in 1999 with Tony Stewart behind the wheel and accomplished winning a total of thirty-three races and two championships.
In 2009 after Stewart began to race for his own team, nineteen-year-old Joey Logano made his debut in the No. 20 car. After four full-time seasons in the No. 20 car, Logano pulled off two victories before departing to Team Penske in 2013.
The 2003 Cup Series champion Matt Kenseth would take over the No. 20 car in 2013. The 2013 season would be one of Kenseth’s best seasons, winning seven races and averaging a finish of 12.1. Kenseth would go on to win 15 races at JGR. Unfortunately, the 2017 season was Kenseth’s farewell season, leaving him with no ride for 2018 after it was announced that Erik Jones would run the No. 20 car starting in 2018.
In July, after it was announced Jones would take over the No. 20 car he said, “This is a really exciting time in my career for me to make the move back to Joe Gibbs Racing full time in the Cup Series and continue to have the success I’ve had with them over the last few years.”
In February at Daytona International Speedway, a new chapter will begin for Joe Gibbs Racing and the No. 20 team. When the No. 20 hauler parks in front of the garage and opens the trailer, they’ll be unloading Erik Jones No. 20 car.
Even though Jones failed to qualify for the post season in 2017, he had a decent year for his rookie season. Jones won the Sunoco Rookie of the Year award, earned five top-five finishes, and led 310 laps. It’s easy to say his best race was the Bristol night race, where he picked up his first career pole, led 260 laps and finished a career high of second.
Erik Jones is “back home” and is ready to keep adding his name to the NASCAR history books. Many believe in sophomore slumps, but Jones can very easily prove doubters wrong. Jones has proven that he can win in anything, as he has done before.
During the week before Miami, it was announced that Chris Gayle will be back as Jones crew chief for 2018.
“I’m very excited to work with Erik again in 2018 and continue to build on our rookie season of 2017,” Gayle said in a media release. “I think the lessons we learned together this year will be invaluable to us next season.”
For Jones and Gayle, the 2017 season was a season of lessons and gaining better knowledge for the Cup Series. We know they could’ve won Bristol, but the fact is that they didn’t and they’ll learn from that race and all the other races they ran.
Next season, they’ll go into Daytona with a season under their belts. Jones and the No. 20 team should be a team to keep an eye on in 2018 as they’ll probably see victory lane and may even be a threat for the championship.
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