NCWTS: ERIK JONES Back Within Striking Distance

MOORESVILLE, N.C. (Aug. 17, 2015) – Behind the strength of five consecutive top-10 finishes, Erik Jones has slowly closed the gap in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series championships standings. After a late-race accident relegated Jones to a 23^rd-place finish at Gateway Motorsports Park in Madison, Ill., he found himself 33 points out of first place. Coming off a third-place finish last weekend at Michigan, the talented youngster has closed the gap to just nine points entering Wednesday night’s UNOH 200 at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway.

Jones has tallied 209 championship points over the last five races, while points leader Tyler Reddick has scored 197 and reigning champion Matt Crafton has produced 177. The No. 4 Tundra team got the comeback started with a win at Iowa Speedway in Newton and followed it up with a second-place finish at Kentucky Speedway in Sparta. The last three races, the Rookie of the Year candidate has shown he has the veteran poise that it will take to win Kyle Busch Motorsports its first driver’s championship, maximizing finishes and overcoming adversity.

At Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio, Jones ran around the 10^th position for most of the race, but emerged with a fourth-place finish. At Pocono, he ran second for most of the race before getting spun out late, but was able to remain on the lead lap and gained six positions over the course of three green-white-checkered finishes to salvage a top-10 finish. Last week at Michigan, the home-state driver got shuffled back from third to ninth on a late restart and then after coming down pit road for adjustments under caution, found himself in the 17^th position with 19 laps remaining. The talented youngster was able to make up ground quickly and brought home a third-place finish.

Wednesday night will mark Jones’ first Truck Series start at Bristol, but he has competed in two NASCAR XFINITY Series events at the half-mile track. Last August, he qualified fourth and finished eighth in his Volunteer State debut. Earlier this year, he captured the pole and brought home a fourth-place finish.

The last three races, Jones has learned that you don’t have to lead every lap and win every race to compete for a championship. The key is to minimize the bad days and post solid finishes every week. By following that game, KBM’s young gun has put himself back within striking distance.

“I think we all, as a team collectively like it. It’s kind of a good benchmark for us to see where we really are and see where our whole program is. Anytime Kyle (Busch) is in a race, we get excited to have the chance to run the race with Kyle. Not only myself, but the rest of the field gets excited to race against Kyle as well. That’s the only thing you hope you can keep up with him because if you don’t, he’s going to say his stuff is faster and you’re not giving it your all. It’s just fun to race him and it’s really good for us as a whole team when he can get in and really show us where our stuff is.”

“It’s not easy. At the beginning of the year, I thought we would have been on sheer speed good enough to beat him (Matt Crafton) on the track. Unfortunately as the year has went on with mishaps and things not going our way, we’ve had the speed but not really the finishes and he’s so consistent every week that those poor finishes or mistakes are amplified, especially in a points situation. I think the biggest thing for us now is kind of maximizing our bad days than our good days. We have really good stuff and we’re able to go out and run out front, but on those days when we aren’t any good, we have to go out and make sure we don’t make any mistakes and are in a place like Eldora – we did a really good job of being there and being consistent at the end of the race where we finished ahead of the 88 (Matt Crafton). Any week we can finish ahead of him, that’s obviously a good points week for us. That’s the biggest thing, some weekends it’s not going to be there to win as much as we’d love to win, it’s just not going to play out and we need to make the best of those days it’s not going to play out.”

“Having a short turnaround from Michigan to Bristol has been on the schedule for several years, so it’s something you are aware of and as a crew chief you have to put a plan in place well in advance to make sure that you are ready when it gets here. The one thing that can get you off schedule is if your driver tears up a bunch of trucks in the races leading into Bristol. Fortunately for our team, Erik (Jones) has done a good job of keeping our trucks in one piece this year and we’ve been able to stick to our schedule.”

KBM-028: The No. 4 Toyota Racing team will unload chassis KBM-028 for Wednesday’s UNOH 200 at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway. It is the same Tundra that Jones captured the pole and led 112 laps en route to victory at Iowa Speedway in Newton in June and followed it up with a runner-up finish at Kentucky Speedway in Sparta in July.

Erik Jones 2013

Ryan “Rudy” Fugle will call the shots for Erik Jones’ Truck Series championship campaign in 2015. The New York native led KBM’s No. 51 Tundra team to a series-leading six wins, including Jones’ first-career victory at Phoenix International Raceway, and an Owner’s Championship as crew chief in 2013. He has seven career wins as a Truck Series crew chief, five with Kyle Busch behind the wheel and two with Jones as the pilot. He also contributed to an additional 11 wins in his role as race engineer for the organization during the 2012 and 2014 seasons. Before coming to KBM, Fugle held crew chief positions in both the Truck Series and XFINITY Series with Germain Racing.

Fugle’s lone event calling the shots for a Truck Series race at Bristol resulted in a victory with Busch in 2013.