Photo Credit: Mike Holtsclaw
Following neck spams, Denny Hamlin elected to not return to his No. 11 FedEx Toyota Camry following the red flag for rain at lap 23. Instead, it was young Erik Jones that jumped behind the wheel.
“I just pulled something in my neck, upper-back about lap 12 and started going backwards at that point as the pain was bothering me quite a bit,” Hamlin shared. “We’ve been working on it the last few hours, but I’m not 100%. With this format, I wouldn’t been able to go out there and compete for a win. I’d be doing my team a complete injustice being in the car. So I felt it’d be better to put Erik Jones in the car and let him do some laps to get used to the car. It sucks because we had worked so hard during practice to get the car running better.”
When the decision was made, Jones was sitting on his couch in North Carolina and thinking about taking a nap, though that all changed when he got a text from one of the crew members.
“Right then I started packing a bag,” he said. “I called my dad and said, ‘Hey, I think I might be getting to run a Cup race tonight.’ He was like, ‘Okay, cool keep me updated.’ Took off right from there and flew here and helicoptered in and got in and drove.”
Jones would go down two laps in the first half of the event, but got stronger as the race went on en route to finishing 26th.
“Obviously, it was a huge learning experience overall,” he said. “The FedEx Camry was pretty good, but it just took me so long – really up until the red flag and kind of sitting and thinking about it and really figuring out what I had and what I had to do different from the Xfinity cars was just huge. I learned a ton. I wish we could start the night over and do it all again. It was an interesting situation for sure. I never turned a lap in one of these cars until the green flag dropped. It was interesting and I learned a ton. I can’t wait to try it again.”
One of the small issues that he encountered was the steering wheel that Hamlin runs versus what he runs.
“The steering wheel was a little too close and just a different steering wheel than what I would normally run,” he said. “That made it just tough to physically turn the wheel. It wasn’t a huge deal, actually 500 laps went by pretty fast. Just a huge learning experience overall and pretty pumped that I got the opportunity.”
But despite that, Jones was able to learn a lot, especially how different a Cup car is compared to an XFINITY car.
“The extra speed is such an adjustment from lift points to throttle pick up points and everything else,” he commented. “You have to really adjust yourself. It took me a good half to three-quarters of the race to really get a feel for it and I’m still not there. I’m still trying to figure out timing and passing cars and not getting hung up behind the car because I picked up throttle too soon. It was interesting to feel the differences and I hope we get to try it again.”
With David Ragan on lone currently from Front Row Motorsports to replace Kyle Busch, this is a possibility that Jones could be in the No. 18 Camry should Ragan have to return before Busch is ready to return.
“I would love the opportunity to get a full weekend of practice and really dial the car in for myself and be comfortable overall,” Jones said. “I’d love to try it and I really think we could run top-15, top-10 and obviously a place like Bristol makes it tougher anyway. If I do, great, but I have a ton of races already in the Xfinity and trucks so we’ll have to see where it goes.”
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RT @OnPitRoad_: NSCS: Erik Jones Fills in for Denny Hamlin Following “Neck Spasms” by @ladybug388 http://t.co/E7xiIvgYWd