Erik Jones Tag

After squeaking out the fastest lap in the second round of Thursday night’s knockout qualifying at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Kevin Harvick left no doubt when it counted. Touring the 1.5-mile track in 27.918 seconds (193.424 mph) to post the fastest lap of the day in the final round, Harvick claimed his first Coors Light Pole Award for the Coca-Cola 600 and his second overall at Charlotte Motor Speedway. The driver of the No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet will lead the field to green in NASCAR’s longest race on Sunday afterRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor After winning his first career pole on Friday, Ryan Blaney headed into Saturday night’s Go Bowling 400 at Kansas as one of the favorites to be able to contend for the win and after a strong run from the driver in his sophomore season, the No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing team would bring home a fourth-place finish when the checkered flag flew. Blaney would lead the first nine laps of the race before ceding the lead over to eventual race winner Martin Truex, Jr., butRead More

By Aaron Bearden, NASCAR Contributor Phew. The last few weeks sure have been fun, haven’t they? Ever since the conclusion of the West Coast Swing – another solid stretch of the schedule – NASCAR has gone on a tour of many tracks that fans and media alike seem to clamor for, often putting on thrilling races in the processes. The past five races have seen all three of the schedule’s short tracks, a superspeedway race and just a single 1.5-miler, which was itself interesting due to the wild-card nature ofRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor “Talladega: World’s Fastest Junkyard,” quipped FOX Sports announcer Mike Joy after an 18-car crash broke out on the backstretch of the 2.66-mile superspeedway with 19 laps to go in Sunday’s GEICO 500. Couldn’t have summed it up any better. After a relatively quiet race by Talladega standards through the first 170 laps, the inevitable “Big One” was coming and when it came, it certainly was big. Coming off Turn 2, AJ Allmendinger, who was running third, made contact with the second-place driver, Chase Elliott, turningRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service   TALLADEGA, Ala. – Aric Almirola charged into the lead with four laps left in Saturday’s Sparks Energy 300 at Talladega Superspeedway and held off Elliott Sadler at the finish to win the third NASCAR XFINITY Series race of his career.   With the Ford of Darrell Wallace Jr. plowing into the inside backstretch wall behind him on the final lap, Almirola held the top spot to the finish, beating Sadler, the series leader, to the finish line by .142 seconds.   The win wasRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor As is the case anytime NASCAR visits the restrictor plate tracks of Daytona and Talladega, the chance of a multi-car crash is high and in Saturday’s Sparks Energy 300 at Talladega, the first multi-car crash of the day struck early, sweeping several contenders up in the melee. Heading down the backstretch on lap 20, last year’s runner-up at Talladega, Brennan Poole, who had already sustained some front-end damage earlier in the race, tried to move into the outside lane, but there was no room toRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor After setting down the fastest time in NASCAR Xfinity Series practice on Friday, Blake Koch and Kaulig Racing were fast again in Saturday’s qualifying session for the Sparks Energy 300 as Koch scored his first career pole with a lap of 52.188 seconds, 183.490 mph. Joining Koch on the front row will be Kasey Kahne, who is driving the No. 88 Chevrolet this weekend for JR Motorsports. Rounding out the top-five starters for Saturday’s race are three of the four Richard Childress Racing entries, withRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service BRISTOL, Tenn. – Erik Jones found the ideal way to atone from a mistake in Saturday’s Fitzgerald Glider Kits 300 at Bristol Motor Speedway, but it took a bump-and-run for Jones to complete his comeback at the .533-mile short track. Recovering from a Lap 230 pit road speeding penalty that sent him to the back of the field, Jones worked his way to the front through a series of quick cautions and muscled Ryan Blaney out of the way to take the lead onRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service FORT WORTH, Tex. – What a difference a pit stop made. Erik Jones gained two seconds over Ryan Blaney on his final trip to pit road, and that was all the driver of the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota needed for a convincing victory in Saturday’s My Bariatric Solutions 300 NASCAR XFINITY Series race at Texas Motor Speedway. In winning for the second time at Texas, the first time this season and the seventh time in his career, Jones led 112 of theRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor After a trip to the smallest track on the circuit for some great racing at Martinsville last weekend, the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series heads to the Lone Star State and Texas Motor Speedway for Sunday’s running of the O’Reilly Auto Parts 500. First joining the circuit in 1997, the 1.5 mile Texas track has provided some great racing over the years as the surface wore down as each season passed. However, this go around, the track will be a completely different animal as theRead More