Brandon Jones drives to a runner up finish at Kansas Speedway although he missed the Playoff field. (Photo: Cole Penning | The Podium Finish)
KANSAS CITY, Kan. – On one hand, Brandon Jones scored a second place finish in Saturday afternoon in the Kansas Lottery 300 at Kansas Speedway.
Then again, Jones’ gallant effort was all for naught as far as advancing into the NASCAR XFINITY Series Playoffs.
The weekend had a quick start for the Atlanta native as he qualified fourth on Saturday morning.
Once the green flag dropped, Jones did not lose any speed and drove his way to a fourth place Stage 1 finish. In the closing laps of Stage 2, Jones spun from the fourth position in Turn 4, leading to a 29th stage finish.
On Lap 97, Jones spun again avoiding Justin Allgaier and Sammy Smith after they tangled. Jones recovered throughout the stage, and fought his way back up to second by Lap 153 of the 200 lap race.
After the race, the 26-year-old mentioned the adverse situations he encountered throughout the race, and how he and his team faced them.
“It was pretty eventful, for sure,” Jones said. “Still, not a pitch perfect day. I think that one (spin) was self induced, I was surprised how loose the car got because I really wasn’t fighting it to that extent.
“I thought I was on a little bit of a lemon of a tire, but not to where we were going to wreck, so that threw me for a little bit of a loop. The one with the No. 7 (Justin Allgaier) was just difficult to miss, I think, kind of wrong place wrong time with that one.”
Jones gave it all he had despite the Stage 2 adventures. Still, some frustrating regular season races relegated the JR Motorsports racer to racing for best in class in the remaining seven races.
Nevertheless, Jones saw the positives of his strong performance for his No. 9 team.
“Yea, I was happy with that,” Jones added. “We made some good changes got back up to the front, great restarts there at the end. I struggled all day trying to get a launch and get going, but then we were pretty good through (Turn) one, two and three and four on the restarts so I knew if I could just do that I mean that’s how I’ve won these races in the past, just getting really good at one and two then I just have a lot of momentum.”
Jones also spoke about the momentum he feels this runner up finish will give both himself and his team.
“It’s great,” Jones said. “I think that just having good solid runs is big for team camaraderie, I think it’s big for this organization. I know I say it like a bunch, but we’ve just been so up and down on our finishes so it’s just nice to kind of get that turned back around and not really prove to everybody but just reassurance of like ‘OK, yeah we’re still there we’ve still got it.’
“So, I think that’s what that does for the team and for myself as well going forward.”
