NCWTS: ERIK JONES Ready to Take Over the Leading Role

MOORESVILLE, N.C. (Sept. 15, 2015) – For the first time in his young career, Erik Jones will enter Friday’s NASCAR Camping World Truck Series American Ethanol 225 at Chicagoland Speedway in  Joliet, Ill. as the points leader. On the strength of seven consecutive top-10 finishes, including a victory in the series’ last stop at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park in Bowmanville, Ontario, Jones has erased a 33-point deficit in the championship standings and now leads two-time reigning champion Matt Crafton by three points with eight races remaining.

Friday night’s 150-lap race will mark Jones’ first Truck Series start at the 1.5-mile D-shaped oval, but he has made two NASCAR XFINITY Series starts there. The talented youngster made his NASCAR XFINITY Series debut at the track last July, qualifying fourth and leading two laps en route to an impressive seventh-place finish. Jones returned to the stand-alone event this year and despite not getting to practice the Monster Energy Camry due to competing in the Truck Series race at Iowa, he led 94 laps en route to his second-career XFINITY Series victory.

In addition to two XFINITY Series starts in the Windy City, Jones participated in both practice sessions for last September’s Truck Series event, despite not competing in the race. While Kyle Busch was tending to Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup media obligations during practice, the No. 51 team turned to Jones to get the Dollar General Tundra dialed in for the race. Having never turned a lap in a truck at the venue, he finished third in the opening session and eighth in final practice.

When qualifying was rained out and subsequently the race was postponed, Busch was forced to start from the rear of the field for making a driver change. Jones’ setup for the Dollar General Tundra must have been a good one, as his boss was able to lead 66 of 154 laps en route to the victory. Busch’s victory in last year’s event was Kyle Busch Motorsports’ (KBM) second consecutive and third overall at the Illinois track in its five-year existence, all with its owner-driver behind the wheel.

The No. 4 Tundra team has showed a lot of speed in the four Truck Series races on mile-and-a-half tracks this season, but victory lane has eluded them thus far. Jones has led 42.7 percent of the 581 total laps at the 1.5-mile venues in 2015 and brought home runner-up finishes at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway in May and Kentucky Speedway in Sparta in July. In addition to his success in the Truck Series, both of his NASCAR XFINITY Series wins have come on mile-and-a-half tracks (Texas Motor Speedway and Chicagoland Speedway) this year.

Jones was part of the supporting cast that helped Busch deliver a winning performance in last year’s Truck Series race at Chicagoland. This year he is ready to take over the leading role and is eager to produce KBM’s first mile-and-a-half victory of the season as he aims to maintain his spot atop the Truck Series championship standings.

“I think so — for me Chicago has always been one of my favorite places to go to. I’ve actually never been there for a Truck Series race, but I’ve made two XFINITY Series starts and we were very fast at both of them.Any time you’ve been fast at a track, you look forward to the next time you get to go there. KBM has been really fast there in the past and Kyle (Busch) was able to get the win there last year. I was able to practice the truck for him last year and make some laps and that experience will help my confidence this year.”

“I feel like I’ll be able to take quite a bit of what I learned last year and use it to my advantage this weekend. The weather conditions are going to be similar and Goodyear is bringing a similar tire. Our Tundra was so good last yearduring practice when I was driving it that we didn’t have to change a lot. Hopefully we can unload a Toyota Certified Used Vehicles Tundra that is just as good this year and go out and compete for another win Friday night.”

“We’ve been on a stretch recently where we’ve been racing on a lot of different types of tracks, so it will be good to get back to a mile-and-a-half tack this weekend. Four of the final eight races will be on mile-and-a-half tracks, so we’ll get a good indication of how we stack up for the stretch run. Our Tundras had a lot of speed on the mile-and-a-half tracks earlier in the season and KBM has always had fast trucks at Chicagoland, so I’m confident that we’ll have a fast Toyota Certified Used Vehicles Tundra for Erik on Friday. He’s been good there — won the XFINITY Series race earlier this year — and although he hasn’t made a start there in the Truck Series, he was able to practice the truck for Kyle last year and did a really nice job.”

KBM-031: The No. 4 Toyota Certified Used Vehicles team will unload chassis KBM-031 for Friday night’s American Ethanol 225 at Chicagoland (Ill.) Speedway. Christopher Bell raced the Tundra at Kentucky Speedway in Sparta in July, starting from the 16^th position based on Truck Series Owner’s points and finishing 17^th after a late-race accident thwarted a top-10 run.

Date	Site	Driver	Start	Finish	Laps	Laps Led	Status
7/9/15	Kentucky	Bell	16	17	144/145	0	running

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 eight career wins as a Truck Series crew chief, five with Kyle Busch behind the wheel and three 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.

Kyle Busch led 51 laps en route to victory in Fugle’s lone Truck Series race atop the pit box at Chicagoland in 2013.