No. 20 Circle K Toyota Camry News and Notes:
· JONES AT MARTINSVILLE SPEEDWAY: A track where Jones is no stranger, he has accumulated seven-career starts across both the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series (NCWTS) and Monster Energy Cup Series (MENCS). He has two MENCS starts with a best finish of 12th. On the Truck side, Jones has five starts scoring his best finish of third in the spring 2015 race.
· 5 YEARS AND COUNTING… Jones made his NASCAR debut at the historical Martinsville Speedway during the spring 2013 race weekend. At just 16 years old, Jones qualified for the race in the 19th position, ran all 250 laps and finished a respectable ninth. Since that day, Jones has gone on to mark his place in NASCAR history becoming the youngest Truck Series champion at 19 and becoming the first driver to win Rookie of the Year honors in all three of NASCAR premier series.
· JGR AT MARTINSVILLE SPEEDWAY: Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) has 122 total starts at Martinsville Speedway in Cup Series competition earning 10 wins, 42 top-five finishes, 66 top-10 finishes and eight pole starting positions. The team has led 4,626 laps, completed 58,965 of 60,978 attempted laps (96.7%) and earned an average start of 13.4 and an average finish of 13.2. Denny Hamlin leads the team with five wins (2008, 2009, 2010, 2010 and 2015) followed by Tony Stewart (2000 and 2006) and Kyle Busch (2016 and 2017) each with two wins and Bobby Labonte (2002) with one win.
· AUTO CLUB RECAP: For the final race of ‘NASCAR Goes West,’ Jones and the No. 20 Toyota Camry team qualified for the Auto Club 400 in the fourth position and after running the majority of the race in the top 10, crossed the finish line in the seventh spot. The finish was the team’s third straight top-10 finish of the season.
· THIS WEEK ON THE NO. 20 CAMRY: Returning to the East Coast for the sixth race of the season, Circle K will return to the No. 20 Toyota Camry this weekend with Jones after making their debut with the 21-year-old Joe Gibbs Racing driver at Daytona International Speedway for this year’s Clash.
· RACE INFO: The STP 500 at Martinsville Speedway is scheduled for Sunday, March 25, 2018. Coverage will begin at 2:00 p.m. ET on FOX, Sirius XM Channel 90 and MRN Radio.
Jones Career NASCAR Cup Series Stats at Martinsville Speedway:
|
Starts |
Wins |
Top 5 |
Top 10 |
Poles |
Laps Led |
Avg. Start |
Avg. Finish |
|
2 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
11.5 |
19.9 |
Jones 2018 Season NASCAR Cup Series Stats:
|
Starts |
Wins |
Top 5 |
Top 10 |
Poles |
Laps Led |
Avg. Start |
Avg. Finish |
|
5 |
0 |
0 |
3 |
0 |
11 |
8.0 |
14.2 |
Jones Career NASCAR Cup Series Stats:
|
Starts |
Wins |
Top 5 |
Top 10 |
Poles |
Laps Led |
Avg. Start |
Avg. Finish |
|
44 |
0 |
5 |
17 |
1 |
322 |
13.4 |
17.2 |
From the Driver’s Seat:
Erik Jones: “Martinsville has always been a tough track for me. As a driver, I think I’ve been there the most throughout my NASCAR career between the Truck Series and the Cup Series now. It’s just a place I’ve always fought and been trying to get better at over the last few years. I think I learned some things there last year between the two races and hopefully we can take that and apply it to the race this weekend and finish a few spots better than we did last year.”
From the Pit Box:
Chris Gayle: “Overall, this was one of the toughest tracks for Erik and myself last season. I felt like we struggled to get the car to turn well enough in the race without compromising drive off the corner. The good news is we have a lot of room for improvement and expect to do the same thing we’ve done all season and improve our finish from last season’s events. We also have two teammates that are very good at this racetrack and have the ability to use them as resources for driver and setup feedback, so we should be all set with the tools we need to make improvements at this track. We’re all very optimistic about turning one of the worst tracks into one of our better tracks for 2018.”
Joe Gibbs Racing PR
