BRANDON JONES RALLIES TO LEAD THREE GR SUPRAS INSIDE TOP-10 AT PHOENIX
Thompson and Sawalich Join Jones with Top-10 Finishes in the Desert
AVONDALE, Ariz. (October 17, 2026) – Brandon Jones rallied from an early race pit decision to lead Toyota with a sixth-place finish in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race at Phoenix Raceway on Saturday evening.
Team Toyota posted four GR Supras inside the top-15 in the final finishing order – Jones, Dean Thompson in seventh, William Sawalich in eighth and Harrison Burton in 13th. The finish for Thompson was his fifth top-10 finish of the year.
TOYOTA RACING Post-Race Recap
NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series (NOAPS)
Charlotte Motor SpeedwayRace 30 of 33 – 200 miles, 200 laps
TOYOTA FINISHING POSITIONS
1st, Jesse Love*
2nd, Sam Mayer*
3rd, Justin Allgaier*
4th, Corey Day*
5th, Sammy Smith*
6th, BRANDON JONES
7th, DEAN THOMPSON
8th, WILLIAM SAWALICH
13th, HARRISON BURTON
20th, BRENT CREWS
28th, TAYLOR GRAY
*non-Toyota driver
TOYOTA QUOTES
BRANDON JONES, No. 20 Menards/Monster Energy Toyota GR Supra, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 6th
You had to find track position after the strategy call early in the race to take rain tires. Why was that call made and how did it affect your day?
“Certainly it showed it was the wrong decision. He (crew chief Sam McCauley) sounded really confident in the decision. We never even talked about if people stayed out in that aspect. I was kind of confused, I saw when pit road open everyone just stay up and I kind of asked one more time if we were sure we were coming and I think that confused him a little bit and he said absolutely. I came down pit road and saw nobody came and knew it was going to be interesting to say the least. It wasn’t a difficult decision, the easy choice was to just do what everyone else does from that standpoint. But there was a ton of rain and it was still coming down and I really couldn’t even see out of my windshield because of all the stuff that gets caked on the windshield and I was no help from that aspect of it. It just put us behind the eight ball with nobody coming. To get back to the top-six was a really good rebound from that aspect of things. We did a really good job on our green flag cycle, we came at a really good time and the caution worked in our favor, so had a great restart. There’s a few good takeaway from the week, but we probably could have kept track position and made it a little bit easier on ourselves today, but all in all the last couple of weeks we haven’t had great middle of the races and we’ve done a great job of rebounding. I just want to thank everyone at Menard’s, Monster Energy and Toyota. We’ll just keep working through these couple little things as the weeks wind down and try to get some momentum built up for the end of the year.”
About Toyota
Toyota (NYSE:TM) has been a part of the cultural fabric in North America for nearly 70 years, and is committed to advancing sustainable, next-generation mobility through our Toyota and Lexus brands, plus our more than 1,800 dealerships.
Toyota directly employs nearly 64,000 people in North America who have contributed to the design, engineering, and assembly of over 50 million cars and trucks at our 14 manufacturing plants. In 2025, Toyota’s plant in North Carolina began to assemble automotive batteries for electrified vehicles.
For more information about Toyota, visit www.ToyotaNewsroom.com.
