FANTASY NASCAR Racin

an American professional stock car racing driver from Byron, Michigan. Jones received his high school diploma at Texas Motor Speedway before the WinStar World Casino 400K Camping World Truck Series race on June 6, 2014 because he had to miss his HS Graduation due to having a truck race that night. Jones began his racing career at the age of seven, in quarter-midget racing; he began racing stock cars at age 13 competing in the ASA Series. Moving to the Champion Racing Association's CRA All-Star Tour in 2011, he won the series championship in his rookie year; Jones also was the winner of that year's Governor's Cup 200 late model race at New Smyrna Speedway, leading every lap of the event; he was the first driver not born in the state of Florida to achieve that feat in over thirty years. Jones moved to the ARCA Racing Series for the 2012 season, becoming the first-ever driver to compete in the series at the age of 15; competing in 10 of the series' 19 races (he was not eligible at tracks longer than one mile), he posted a best finish of third at Winchester Speedway and Berlin Raceway. In December of that year, Jones held off

NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver Kyle Busch to win the prestigious Snowball Derby. On March 2013, Kyle Busch Motorsports announced that it had signed Jones to drive in five age-eligible Camping World Truck Series races in the team's No. 51 Toyota Tundra, driving at Martinsville Speedway, Rockingham Speedway and Iowa Speedway, as NASCAR relaxed the "Kyle Busch Rule" in that series where the minimum age was reduced from 18 to 16 at ovals shorter than 2,000 meters and road courses. Jones finished second in his third career start in the series at Iowa. In October, Jones added another prestigious late model trophy to his collection, winning the Winchester 400.

On November 8, 2013, Jones became the youngest driver ever to win in the history of NASCAR's top-level competition to that time, winning the Lucas Oil 150 at Phoenix International Raceway over Ross Chastain at the age of 17 years, five months and eight days. In January 2014 it was announced that Jones would return to KBM in the Truck Series for 2014, competing in all age-eligible events and selected longer track events after he turned 18. On July 11, at Iowa Speedway, Jones dueled Ryan Blaney and ultimately held him off for the win. On September 27, Jones won at Las Vegas Motor Speedway for his first longer track win. On November 7, Jones picked up his 4th career Truck Series win under the red flag at Phoenix, due to a power outage. On June 19, 2014, Joe Gibbs Racing announced that Jones will run three races with the team's #20 in the Xfinity Series after he became age-eligible. On

November 6, 2014, it was announced that Jones would run the full 2015 season in the Trucks for KBM, his first age-eligible season racing for a championship, as well as running an increased slate of races for JGR in the Xfinity Series. Jones picked up his first win of the 2015 season at Iowa Speedway. Jones' second win of 2015 came at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park at the end of August, after which he assumed the points lead for the first time in his career following a wreck by Tyler Reddick in the race. Jones picked up win number three on the season at Texas Motor Speedway extending his point lead over Crafton. Jones battled with defending champion Matt Crafton and Reddick during the course of the 2015 season and beat

them to win the Championship. On April 10 2015, Jones won his first Xfinity Series race at Texas Motor Speedway driving the #20 GameStop Toyota. Later in the year, Jones completed a weekend sweep, winning at Iowa in the Truck Series for the first time in 2015 and at Chicagoland in the Xfinity Series, battling Ryan Blaney for his second career Xfinity Series win. Jones started racing full-time in the Xfinity Series for JGR in 2016, driving the No. 20. Jones won his first race of the season at Bristol in April, holding off Kyle Larson and Kyle Busch on a late restart. He also won the $100,000 Dash 4 Cash bonus by being the highest finishing Xfinity Series regular out of the four who qualified

through the heat races. Jones won for the second time in 2016 at Dover in May, again winning the $100,000 Dash 4 Cash bonus. Jones then set the fastest time in qualifying for the Hisense 4K TV 300, winning the 9th straight pole for JGR. At Iowa in July, Jones scored his third win of the season, leading the most laps and passing Ty Dillon for the lead with 15 laps to go. Jones won for the fourth time at Chicagoland in September, taking the lead with 10 laps to go. With this win, Jones entered the Chase as the number one seed. Jones advanced through the Chase to the championship round at Homestead, where he would finish

4th in points behind Daniel Suárez, Elliott Sadler, and Justin Allgaier. Jones unofficially debuted in the Sprint Cup Series during the 2015 Food City 500, when he relieved Denny Hamlin in the No. 11 due to Hamlin's neck spasms. After taking over the car, which had been in fifth, he dropped to 37th for the restart, and despite falling to the point where he was two laps down, Jones managed to finish the race in 26th. Since Hamlin started the race, he was credited with the 26th-place finish. It was then announced that he would drive the #18 Toyota Camry for Kyle Busch, who was recovering from a leg injury, at Kansas in the Sprint Cup Series. In his official debut, Jones qualified 12th and ran as high as first before crashing while running fourth. Jones

ended up finishing 40th, 25 laps down. Jones made his first career "triple duty" by running all three national series at the November Texas and Phoenix races. On November 4, he was announced as the driver of JGR's #20 car following the suspension of Matt Kenseth because of his incident with Joey Logano at Martinsville race the previous week. Jones finished 12th after blowing a tire late at Texas Motor Speedway. He drove the car again at Phoenix International Raceway to a 19th-place finish. On August 7, 2016, it was announced that Jones had signed a deal with Furniture Row Racing to drive in their new #77 car sponsored by 5-hour Energy for the 2017 Sprint Cup season. Joe Gibbs gives technical support to Furniture Row and agree to help Furniture Row field a second team so

Gibbs could move Jones career forward and get him CUP experience as soon as possible. Jones had a productive 2017 with Furniture Row and as a rookie posted several good finishes; including a second place at Bristol. He had five Top 5 finishes and 14 Top 10's. He was close to making the playoffs in the Chase; but missed and finished 19th in the points. About two months before the end of the season it was announced that JGR would not renew Matt Kenseth's contract going forward; and Jones would take the wheel of the #20 in 2018. On July 7th 2018, after a crash fest at Daytona in the summer event; Jones pulled off his first career Cup win. With most of the major players out of contention; Jones swept past Martin Truex on the

final lap to claim his first win. He made the Chase via his win at Daytona, but he finished 40th at Las Vegas in the first round of the Chase. Thus he was knocked out at the end of the first round. He went on to finish 15th in the points. 2019 saw Jones remain in the #20 car with Chris Gayle as head wrench. He almost won the season opening Daytona 500, finishing third. Heading into the playoffs, Jones, started 26th at Las Vegas. During the race Jones had reported his throttle was stuck and had to go behind the wall. He returned to the track 16 laps down, Jones ultimately finished 36th. At Richmond, Jones ran top 10 in the later part of the night and was able to finish 4th, but was disqualified when his car was discovered to have a rear wheel alignment issue during post-race inspection. Jones was in a must win situation heading to the Charlotte Roval. However, coming to a restart, Jones was involved in

a multi-car incident heading into turn 1. The damage was significant enough to puncture his radiator and eliminate him from the Round of 16. Jones was back wheeling the #20 for Joe Gibbs Racing in 2020. After Jones had won a race in the previous two season; JGR was looking for this to be his break out year. But he had only one top five finish through the first eight races; and four finishes worse than 18th. More poor finished followed and he and 14 finishes worse than 18th in the first 26 places. At mid-season Bob Levine who owned Levine Family Racing announced he would be selling his Charter and getting out of racing. He stated he was losing money and wasn't

going to risk losing his business to keep racing. Christopher Bell had been driving the LFR #95 all season. Not long after that it was announced that Jones would vacate the #20 at the end of the season, and Bell would assume that ride for 2021. Now suddenly Jones was having to post good results and audition for a ride. The last ten races he had four top ten finishes and no finish worse than 21st. Richard Petty Motorsports had enough confidence in Jones to put him in the iconic #43 for 2021. Jones had a disappointing season in 2021. Having ran for powerhouse JGR in 2020; he took a big step backwards when he ended up driving the #43 for Richard Petty. After having nine Top 5 finishes the previous season he didn’t have

any this year. Also in 2020 he finished inthe Top 10 on 13 occasions; and in 2021 he was only in the Top 10 six times. His best finish came in the Indy Grand Prix when he finished seventh. He will be back in the #43 car in 2022; and will have a new crew chief as Dave Elenz comes over to call the shots. This change along with the introduction of the new NextGen car gives the team hope it will level the playing field somewhat and make them more competitive. Late at the end of 2020 a huge surprise announcement was made involving Richard Petty Motorsports. Petty sold a majority interest to Maury Gallagher owner of Gallagher Motorsports. GMS moved up to the Cup series in 2021 and

had Ty Dillon as a driver. With this move, GMS will now be a two car team and retained Jones as a driver. At Fontana, Jones scored his first top five since 2020 by finishing third. Prior to the Pocono race, the #43 was docked 35 driver and owner points for an L1 penalty when the pre-race inspection revealed issues on the car's rocker box vent hole. With Jones not winning a race during the regular season; and 16 different drivers claiming a win; Jones was not eligible for the Chase to win the championship in 2022. He did make some noise however, when he gave the #43 it's first win since 2014, when he won the Southern 500 at Darlington, giving Petty GMS it's first win. Noah Gragson will replace Ty Dillon in the #42 car as Jones' team mate in 2023. Also, Jimmie Johnson has bought an ownership share of Petty GMS and plans to run some Cup races in 2023. His talent should show immediate results for Petty GMS and it's drivers. The Petty GMS team changed it name to Legacy Motor Club before the 2023 season started. Jones had one of his worst season since moving to the Cup level. He was only able to have one Top 5 finish, when he came home third at Kansas. His Legacy Motor Club team struggled to put together seven Top 10 finishes. He ended up 27th in points at the end of the season. He only had 17 finishes in the Top 20. A major disappointment for a team that seemed to be showing improvement. 2024 will see some changes as Legacy Motor Club will swap from racing Chevrolets to running Toyotas. We will see how that move works. Some info from Wikipedia

Fantasy NASCAR Racing

ERIK BENJAMIN JONES - 05/30/1996