The meteoric rise of the 20-year old Michigan native will be complete when Furniture Row Racing adds a second car next season.
In 2015 he won the Camping World Truck Series championship and this year he is knocking on the door of adding a second title to his résumé, this time in the Xfinity Series.
Erik Jones sits in fourth place in NASCAR’s second tier series, just 49 points out of the top spot and even if he cannot get back-to-back titles, the 20-year old phenom might have his eye on an even bigger prize, like Rookie of the Year in the sanctioning body’s top level, Sprint Cup, according to multiple reports including motorsport.com.
An announcement by Furniture Row Racing is scheduled for Sunday at Watkins Glen International, site of the Cheez It 355 at the Glen, where it is expected that the team will add a second car for the 2017 season with Jones at the helm.
With Martin Truex getting a two-year contract extension today and FRR having an alliance with Joe Gibbs Racing, the time was right to expand. Adding Jones is only icing on the cake.
Jones, who began in ARCA when he was just 16, has impressed at every level and now gets a chance to showcase his talent among the best drivers in the world. In 14 ARCA starts he logged a win, six top-5 and eight top-10 finishes. Over a four year span in trucks, he finished in the top-10 an amazing 34 times in 41 starts including seven victories and as many poles.
The falloff, if you can call it that, in Xfinity has 32 top-10s in 45 races to go along with five trips to the winner’s circle and nine poles. Last year he got a taste of Sprint Cup at the tender age of 19 for JGR finishing 40th, 12th and 19th and was still on the track when each race finished.
The transformation of a struggling one-car team is now on the verge of becoming a major player after making the switch from Chevrolet to Toyota. With Jones on board, they get a driver who will be mentored by Truex although he has had some pretty big names helping him already in Kyle Busch, Matt Kenseth and others.
The FRR expansion would not be possible without having sponsorship lined up as well. Truex could very possibly have Bass Pro Shops become the primary on the No. 78 while Furniture Row takes over for Jones. Truex and Bass Pro have had a long-standing relationship that is expected to carry over into 2017.