Noah Gragson was unable to participate in Truck Series qualifying Saturday morning at Pocono Raceway after being sick this weekend with what his team called a stomach virus. During a pre-race visit to the infield care center, he was not medically cleared to compete in the race.
Erik Jones was chosen to replace Gragson in the Kyle Busch Motorsports No. 18 Toyota. With the driver change, Jones had to start at the back of the pack in 31st. It didn’t take long, however, for the 2015 Truck Series champion to move up to the front as he finished fourth in the first stage.
Jones time to shine came in the second stage when he took the lead on Lap 27 but multiple battles occurred when he pitted from the lead with teammate Busch. As a result, he did not finish in the top-10 at all during the second stage.
He continued to fight his way through traffic in the remaining laps, as did race leader Busch. At one point with eight laps to go, Jones caught Busch and was side-by-side with him for a short moment. However, race leader Busch prevailed and held on to win while Jones went on to finished second.
“We had a really good truck, number one all day,” Jones said. “The Safelite Tundra was really fast and we just needed to get out front. I thought we were snugged on the last run. I had to use the right front up a little bit to get to him. We had a good opportunity with some lap trucks, that lap trucks gave us the opportunity and there was one more lap truck that we needed to get around that I had to check up in the tunnel which let Kyle stay on my corner and get back by.”
“If we would’ve got out front, I think it would’ve been pretty tough on Kyle to get back around us,” he said. “A fun race, nonetheless. Not expecting to do one is a pretty solid run.”
This was Jones first Truck Series race since 2016 at Gateway where he finished fifth.
