Banner Day Sunday For NASCAR Cup Rookie Contender Erik Jones

Column By: REID SPENCER / NASCAR – LONG POND, PA – Erik Jones got a taste of the high life on Sunday at Pocono Raceway.

Running third in the closing laps of the Axalta presents the Pocono 400, Jones watched Ryan Blaney outduel Kevin Harvick for the victory – and wanted to be up there with them.

Third was a career best for the Sunoco Rookie of the Year contender, but Jones has his sights set on loftier goals.

“It’s great to run up there and it feels really good to get a top five, but, man, when you’re that close and you’re seeing them battle for the win and you’re right there trying to pounce and make a move, it definitely makes you eager to go up there and try to get it.

“Hopefully, this is a sign of things to come, and hopefully we can keep running well and keep getting in contention for more.”

The race unfolded in nearly ideal fashion for the No. 77 Furniture Row Racing team. The Toyota was a long-run car, and there were plenty of long runs in Sunday’s race. And Jones held his position after the final caution on Lap 141 despite taking two tires on the last pit stop.

“We needed a lot of green flag runs and we got that today,” Jones said. “We got plenty of green flag runs. It worked out really good.

“The late caution, I kind of thought that was going to throw a kink in our day. Obviously, I was pretty content with where we were running. Came in, luckily two tires worked out for us just fine. We were able to get clear up into third and kind of hang out there for the rest of the race.”

EARNHARDT MISSES ANOTHER SHIFT AND BOWS OUT EARLY
Dale Earnhardt Jr. started from the rear of the field in the Axalta presents the Pocono 400 because a missed shift in practice had forced him to change engines before qualifying.

After a restart on Lap 57, Earnhardt repeated the mistake. Trying to nudge his shifter into fourth gear from third, he hit second gear instead, over-revving the engine. With his power plant out of commission, Earnhardt rolled slowly into the garage and retired from the race in 38th place.

In his final year of Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series racing, Earnhardt has six finishes of 30th or worse in 14 races. Earnhardt was at a loss to explain the cause of the mistakes that caused his engine failures at Pocono Raceway.

“The shifter is not different, the handle is not different, the location, everything is the same,” Earnhardt said. “I don’t know. It’s something about my motion that’s not… going in the wrong gear. I wish I could blame it on something else, because this is awful, it feels awful.

“The car was fast. We drove up into the top 15 there running great lap times. Really, really happy with the car. Wasn’t really running that hard backing up the corners big-time and just cruising forward, really happy. It’s just my fault. I don’t know what else to… I wish I could say that the shifter is different and something is out of line or not something I was doing last year as far as where we had the shifter mounted for Pocono.”

With a road course race at Sonoma and another trip to Pocono in the near future, it’s a problem Earnhardt and his team must solve.

“This really concerns me coming back here and the road courses, you know. But we haven’t had any problems all year long, but at places where we do a lot of shifting, I don’t know what is going on, what I’ve got to do or why this is really happening out of nowhere.

“I don’t know… we don’t really have an answer to it other than me just having to pay more attention, but I mean I’ve been doing this all my life, and this isn’t a common issue, but it has been this weekend.”

HIGH-SPEED BRAKE FAILURE GIVES JIMMIE JOHNSON A MAJOR SCARE
For Jimmie Johnson, Sunday’s Lap 95 excursion into Turn 1 at Pocono Raceway was the scariest moment the seven-time Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series driver had endured since nosing into a tire barrier in a NASCAR XFINITY Series race at Watkins Glen 17 years ago.

Johnson roared into the tight corner at more than 200 mph, but a sudden brake failure sent his No. 48 Chevrolet out of control and hurtling into the outside wall.

“(The brake pedal) went right to the floor, and I saw a replay inside the medical center,” Johnson said after exiting the infield care center. “The smoke, I think, is the brake fluid coming out of wherever it failed and onto the rotors. I can only speculate that I got the brakes too hot and when I went to the brakes they just traveled straight to the floor.

“I didn’t even have a pedal to push on. At that point, I threw it in third gear and I was just trying to slow it down. I was heading to the grass, and I was wondering why I didn’t turn right and get to the wall sooner, but I’m fine. Certainly, a big scare. I haven’t had a scare like that since 2000 at Watkins Glen. So, just want to let my wife and kids and my mom know that I’m okay and I will go change my underwear and get ready to go home.”

In a bizarre coincidence, Jamie McMurray’s brakes failed in the same corner on the same lap. His No. 1 Chevrolet caught fire, forcing McMurray to make a hasty exit from the cockpit.

“I didn’t really even see the No. 48 (Johnson) wrecking until I just went down and I got on the brake pedal and my pedal started to go to the floor, and I had a little bit that I could kind of pump it, and I thought I was going to be OK.

“And then, I don’t know if I got into some oil or what happened, but I just started spinning and didn’t have any brakes. So it was really weird that we kind of both had the same thing happen at the same point on the racetrack, but fortunately, we’re both OK, and, yeah, move on.”