Toyota Racing – Brandon Jones
NASCAR XFINITY Series (NXS)
Atlanta Motor Speedway – February 23 2018
Joe Gibbs Racing driver Brandon Jones was made available to the media at Atlanta Motor Speedway:
BRANDON JONES, No. 19 Menards Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
How was your first race with JGR at Daytona?
“Our goal was to finish the race and finish top-15 doing that. We finished the race, but we didn’t actually come through with no scratches on the car. I think we eneded up getting in five incidents during the weekend. It was weird, it was like myself and Chris Gabehart (crew chief) understanding, for whatever reason – it clearly states this in the rule book – it’s an unlimited attempts for the green-white-checkered (finish) and for whatever reason we thought it was just three. We were pretty much done after that last spin through the grass there and we started loading up tires and we were like, ‘Whoa we have to put tires on it.’ We kind of had to thrash there at the end and rallied back to 10th. It was not too bad considering the day we had fought through all day long. For Atlanta, it’s always fun coming back home for myself. Grew up about an hour from here so it’s fun to come back. It’s a difficult track. It’s probably our hardest 1.5-mile track that we do come to because of the surface here and what it takes to be so disciplined to pick a line and stick to it and run it consistently. I’ve been trying to find some more speed in our Menards Toyota Camry today. We’ll see what we have later on.”
What is it about Spencer Davis that your family has supported him as he comes up through the NASCAR ranks?
“My first two tracks that I ever started at were Lanier Speedway in Braselton, Georgia and Gresham just north of it. Those are the tracks that I ran every single Friday or Saturday night growing up racing. Myself and Spencer (Davis) were the trucks and we were teammates as I was doing it at the time. I’ve been teammates with Spencer for a long time and trying to give him a little bit of an opportunity as well was our goal. He’s a pretty good race car driver. He’s done a heck of a job in Super Late Models and just came up through the ranks pretty well there. That’s kind of our relationship with Spencer to run the short track races with him when I first started.”
What has the change been since joining JGR?
“We’ve had a blast so far, we really have. I feel like this team that I have this year with Chris Gabehart (crew chief) and the guys, we really connected pretty well. All of our personalities mesh pretty well. He’s definitely all serious and no-nonsense, so that’s been pretty good for me. Been pretty disciplined on some new stuff we’ve been working through, but a lot of tools he’s put together just for me to learn a little bit more than I have in the past and I feel like I’ve had a little more handson experience at this team so far. That’s been the biggest thing as far as the year has gone on. I changed manufacturer and went to Toyota here with JGR (Joe Gibbs Racing), for myself that’s a change and it’s been nothing but positive. A lot of work from Toyota, so it’s been good for sure so far.”
