It was the best of times, and there were, uh, some other times for Erik Jones at Toyota but now the band is back together and optimistic for what is to come at Legacy Motor Club.
For the longest time, Jones was the 1a crown jewel of the Toyota Racing Development prospect program alongside the 1b of Christopher Bell. While under the TRD umbrella, Jones won the 2015 NASCAR Truck Series championship, seven Truck Series wins and nine more in the Xfinity Series.
From 2018 to 2020, Jones raced with Joe Gibbs Racing in the Cup Series where he won a Southern 500 and a Firecracker 400 plus a non-points Clash win at Daytona. Ultimately, Jones moved to Richard Petty Motorsports, which became Petty GMS and now Legacy Motor Club when Bell was called up to the Gibbs Cup Series program.
Since then, Jones has won another Southern 500 and really made the most out of a fringe playoff program over the past two several years giving everyone at both Toyota and Legacy M.C. optimism that there is untapped potential with the 43 team and its driver.
Jones was one of the drivers selected to test at Phoenix Raceway last week, his first time back in a Toyota since the end of the 2020 season, and Jones expressed a lot of optimism over what he and crew chief Dave Elenz could potentially do in 2024.
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Jones and Elenz also tackled the Snowball Derby in a Super Late Model together before leaving for Phoenix and debriefed a little about the changes to come.
“I have been out and traveling since the season ended but I did catch up with Dave and our guys here this week about what the Phoenix car looks like, the data we already have and what’s available going into the test,” Jones told Sportsnaut. “It’s definitely way more than we ever had at Legacy, and really, more than our whole time in the sport.
“It’s good to have those sort of data points before we even get in the car, having a new body to figure out, and I would definitely say that optimism is there from where we were eight months ago.”
Challenging NASCAR season for Erik Jones, Legacy Motor Club
It was a really challenging season for Jones and Legacy. They were penalized for a greenhouse violation discovered at Gateway and that was the meat of a figurative disappointing sandwich of bad results on both ends.
Jones finished a career worst 27th in the final standings with just one top-five. A lot of that can be contributed to the decision to leave Chevrolet for Toyota, an announcement made in May, leaving Legacy as a lame duck within the manufacturer’s hierarchy.
The team received less data and were kept out of select manufacturer meetings. Even their simulator time was affected, needing an escort to even use the Chevrolet facility, and not even knowing exactly what baseline setups were even being installed into the program.
Now Jones returns to Toyota, and there wasn’t much to learn, as the manufacturer looks a lot like the one he left in 2020.
“We sat down with those guys at Phoneix,” Jones said of the finale, “and it was mostly the same group of people in the same place, some people I had some really strong relationships with.
“There were like only two people I didn’t know, who were new.
“That’s a really easy reunion for me, right? No one new to learn and just hoping I can plug back into the system, learning what’s new. Everyone has been really welcoming, telling me how exciting they are to see the Toyota patch back on the fire suit and on the car. It’s going to be a big change but it’s one that I’m excited for.”
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.