By Aaron Bearden, Motorsports Editor
The 2017 season wasn’t kind to Brandon Jones.
But 2018 is off to a solid start.
Jones competed inside of the top 10 throughout the day day and survived a run-in with Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Kyle Busch to claim a seventh-place finish in Saturday’s Boyd Gaming 300 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The result was the Georgian’s second top 10 in three starts with JGR, and his best finish since another seventh-place run at Charlotte Motor Speedway in 2016.
“Our 19 Menards Toyota Camry was pretty fast all day,” Jones said afterwards. “I was really happy with it. I think all we had to do all day was some tire adjustments and stuff to kind of fine-tune. It wasn’t like we had to throw big changes at it. We were really close in our setups, I think we could have gotten just a little bit closer.”
Jones started in 16th after failing to make the final round of NASCAR XFINITY Series qualifying earlier in the day. But while the 21-year-old started mid-pack, it didn’t take him long to rise into contention. Jones rallied to sixth in Stage 1, and drove through the field from outside of the top 10 again in Stage 2 to claim a seventh-place result.
The fourth-year Xfinity driver faded early in the final stage, which resulted in a run-in with Busch. The two drivers were racing side-by-side when they made contact going down the frontstretch, leaving a tire mark on Jones’ car. An agitated Busch stuck a finger out the window at Jones going down the backstretch moments later.
Wild Wild West. 🤠#NASCARGoesWest pic.twitter.com/xMiYAtJbtw
— NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts (@NASCAROReillyAP) March 3, 2018
Jones continued on undeterred, and as the run went on his car began to come back to life. He surged into the top 10, passed Busch back and kept his No. 19 Toyota within range of the top five as the laps wound down.
“I think our car was a lot better on the long run than it was the short run,” he said. “You could really see that, like a couple guys would get past me on a restart and their tires would fall off and we’d pass them. I wish we had just a little bit more to get going on the restarts and stuff.”
In the end two late cautions left Jones battling for positions in a short run to the checkered flag. The JGR shoe held his own to claim seventh at race’s end.
“All in all fabulous day for us in the points,” he said. “I’m excited to get to the next track.”
The run continued a solid start to the season for Jones, giving him two top 10s in the opening three races of the season. Those performances show marked improvement for Jones, who managed just three top 10s in all of 2017 for Richard Childress Racing. The Toyota prospect left Las Vegas seventh in the series standings, 37 points behind leader Tyler Reddick.
Next up for Jones will be trips to ISM Raceway and Auto Club Speedway, two tracks that stand in stark contrast to the more traditional 1.5-mile Las Vegas oval.
“The next two races are pretty much opposite of what we came off of in Vegas,” Jones said. “Fontana is a massive track, really wore out. It’s been a track where I’ve really struggled at in the past, but we’ve done a lot of testing on simulators and stuff. I actually had some pretty good speed on that so maybe I’ll surprise myself when we get to that track.
“Phoenix has always been great, I just need to get a little bit of luck on my side at that track. I’ve had a couple of weird things happen there, so really if we can pull it all together I think we can do the same thing we just did here today.”