By Jerry Jordan, Editor
HOMESTEAD, Fla. – Championship night belonged to Justin Allgaier but the race belonged to Brandon Jones.
Jones started eighth, led three times for 25 laps and took the lead for good with 14 laps to go Saturday night at Homestead-Miami Speedway. He pulled away from Carson Kvapil by 3.937 seconds for his ninth career NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series victory and the 700th win for Toyota in NASCAR competition. Congratulations Toyota!
The win came with a search. Jones spent the early laps hunting for a line, got loose in Turn 1 and nearly found the wall before he settled into the groove that carried him to the front.
“Yeah, I mean, to me, the line here is so unique,” Jones said, when asked by Kickin’ the Tires about the early going of the race. “One thing that is cool about Homestead, there’s not one single person doing all the same thing. You got the 41, he’s working the fence all night long. You have a couple of us, a lot of us adapted that run through the middle and slide up to the fence kind of line. I guess I kind of call that the slider line. A lot of people begin to adapt to that.
“If you can get that line I had going tonight, it’s the safest line that can still keep up with the top. There’s always so much risk going up and running against the fence. I was one of ’em, but a bunch of us tonight hit the wall. I think that’s just part of this track. It’s a work in progress. It’s a work of art to be able to go up there and really consistently do that on a lap-after-lap basis. I found it a few times tonight, but also was not in the right spot a few times tonight. So it bit me a few. I’m glad we didn’t cut any tires or have any issues with it.”
Jones chose the top lane on the final restart and dueled Kvapil’s No. 1 Chevrolet through the last stage. The two drivers traded slider jobs without ever crossing the line into contact.
“Tonight nobody even really made a mistake. I think we executed the race phenomenally, really. The pit strategy was really good, the call to stay out was really good until later, and we caught the caution at the right time, and adjustments were great,” Jones said. “It was definitely awesome to kind of end the year on a high note like this. It’s fluctuated, been up and down all year long.”