Saturday, July 7, 2018

Erik Jones Survives Wild Daytona Race for First Cup Win

Originally written for CLNS Media.


Erik Jones won the Coke Zero Sugar 400 on Saturday night from Daytona International Speedway.

Sarah Crabill/Getty Images
Jones survived a wild race where multiple wrecks took out half the field.  Jones was involved in the first big accident, but his team was able to repair the car and get Jones back to the front. 

Jones said he didn’t think his car would be able to compete following the early damage.

“I thought we were out of it and then we were right back in it,” Jones said.  “I didn’t think we were going to have a shot to win it there at about halfway, but we got ourselves back into contention.”

The victory was Jones’ first in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series, and he said he never thought it would be at a superspeedway like Daytona.

“I’ve never been that good on superspeedways and never really thought this our shot to win,” Jones said.  “It’s the first win, and not much has felt better than this one.”

Martin Truex Jr. was leading on the final restart, but he couldn’t hold off Jones over the final two laps. 

Truex said he just wasn’t able to block Jones’ run in time.

“I just got to get better at the blocking; it’s never been my strong suit,” Truex said.  “It was a good run, but we came up a little short.”

“They destroyed some cars tonight…cool to get to the end.”

Unofficial results:
1. Erik Jones
2. Martin Truex Jr.
3. AJ Allmendinger
4. Kasey Kahne
5. Chris Buescher
6. Ty Dillon
7. Matt DiBenedetto
8. Ryan Newman
9. Austin Dillon
10. Alex Bowman
11. Jeffrey Earnhardt
12. Brendan Gaughan
13. DJ Kennington
14. Darrell Wallace Jr.
15. David Ragan
16. Ray Black Jr.
17. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
18. JJ Yeley
19. Kevin Harvick
20. Trevor Bayne
21. Ross Chastain
22. Clint Bowyer
23. Jimmie Johnson
24. Landon Cassill
25. Joey Gase
26. Michael McDowell
27. Aric Almirola
28. Paul Menard
29. Kyle Larson
30. Jamie McMurray
31. Corey LaJoie
32. William Byron
33. Kyle Busch
34. Chase Elliott
35. Daniel Suarez
36. Brad Keselowski
37. Kurt Busch
38. Denny Hamlin
39. Joey Logano
40. Ryan Blaney

Matt Sullivan/Getty Images

No comments:

Post a Comment