(WOMR file photo)
It happened again this weekend!
Once again this talented, hard charging, young gun, Erik Jones, dominated both of the races, Camping World Trucks and the XFINITY, but was unable to close the deal at Kentucky!
Thursday night in the Camping World Truck Series race Jones lead a race high of 55 laps of the scheduled 150 laps, that was shortened to 145 laps due to catchfence failure!
For the second straight week, and at a second race track, a race car/truck got airborne from contact from another racing vehicle, and was catapulted into the catchfence. Once again, as was the case last weeke at Daytona, the race car/truck got some big air, and in doing so the sheetmetal was shredded like a cheese-grader, shearing two support poles off, destroying about a fifty foot section of the catchfence, and ultimately causing the race to prematurley called on lap 145 because of that damage to the catchfence.
Notwithstanding the catchfence damage, the race up til a few laps before the Ben Kennedy (great-grandson of Big Bill France) crash was dominated by the lightening fast Kyle Busch Motorsports #4 Toyota Tundra driven by the nineteen year old Michigan phenom, Erik Jones.
However with a shove from the Ford of Ryan Blaney, Matt Crafton was propelled into the lead on lap 145 just moments before Kennedy was launched into the fence from contact with David Gilliland’s Ford. When the damage to the catchfence was assessed, it was determined that the damage was too severe to repair and get the remaining 5 laps of the race in before the wee hours of the morning. Therefore, the race was called complete and the victory was awarded to Matt Crafton, his fourth of the season and the ninth of his career.
Check out the unofficial results of the UNOH 225.
Fast forward to Friday night in the XFINITY Series race. Erik Jones was behind the seteering wheel of the Joe Gibbs Racing #20 Freightlined Toyouta Camry. Jones did not dominate the XFINITY race like he did the night before in the Camping World Truck race, however he was highly competitive and ran consistently in the top five all night.
With a restart on lap 170, and his eye on leading the last 30 laps of the race to win, Jones edged out Brad Keselowski for the lead, and began building a few second lead. Blazingly Bad Brad would ocassionaly get to Jones’ bumper but was unable to complete the pass during those 22 laps that Jones was the leader. However, on lap 192 Jones was outfoxed, and out manuevered via some lapped trafic and a move by Kes that required a great deal of testicular fortitude. That move by Keselowski was enough to get by Jones and hold him off for the remaining 8 laps of the race for win!
For at least the fourth time so far this season Jones has been in position to win the race, and either through bad luck or some other circumstances that was outside of his control, he has come home without the hardware!
This extremely talented young gun must have a hard time going to sleep at night wondering about what coulda, shoulda, woulda!!
Nevertheless, Erik Jones is one talented nineteen year old race car driver and has a very bright future in NASCAR.
Check out the unofficial results of the Kentucky 300.
TIL NEXT TIME, I AM STILL WORKING ON MY REDNECK!
