“I feel a 100%”: Erik Jones finally returns to NASCAR after horrific crash at Talladega sidelined driver for weeks

Nilavro Ghosh | 11/05/2024
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It’s been a couple of weeks since we have seen Legacy Motor Club driver Erik Jones on track but the 27-year-old will finally be making his comeback at the weekend’s NASCAR Cup Series race in Darlington. The LMC star recently appeared on SiriusXM radio where he shared an update regarding his health following his hard crash at the Talladega Superspeedway. Thankfully, it wasn’t anything too serious and Jones believes that he has already recovered completely.

“First off, I feel good. The first week out was obviously pretty sore and…just trying to rest up and get feeling better and by last week, before Kansas, I was starting to feel pretty good. I still had some soreness but since last week, really since last Friday I really feel good and feel back to about 100%,” the 27-year-old said.

The wreck was a byproduct of Toyota’s strategy gone wrong. Several Toyota cars ran single file to push each other to the front. At the end of the day, it was a high-risk strategy since if even one of them got loose and crashed, the whole pack would have trouble and that is exactly what happened. Unfortunately, Jones suffered the worst of it. He complained of back pain even after being cleared from the infield care center and decided to get that checked out before racing anymore.

No rest for the weary as Erik Jones sets his sights on Darlington

Jones has his reasons to get back in the racecar as soon as possible. One of them would be the fact that he still hopes to find himself a spot in the playoffs later this year.  Hence the LMC driver kept working hard on his fitness while his back healed. Hopefully, he will be ready to go without any issues at Darlington this weekend.

“The two weeks out have really been kind of busy. Just staying busy with appointments and working to get cleared and then obviously trying to get back in the gym and back in some kind of workout routine to make sure I feel good in the car and my body can handle everything… Been in the simulator a little bit and testing all that out so kind of going through the motions to make sure that I feel 100%,” said Jones.

The race at Darlington will be a tricky one and the racing will be hard. It’s not going to be an easy comeback for the 27-year-old. Will he be able to make a positive impact in the race? Only time will tell.

Post Edited By: Srijan Mandal
Erik Jones

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Nilavro Ghosh

Nilavro is a NASCAR journalist at The SportsRush. His love for motorsports began at a young age with F1 and spread out to other forms of racing like NASCAR and Moto GP. After earning his post-graduate degree from the Asian College of Journalism in 2020, he has mostly worked as a motorsports journalist. Apart from covering racing, his passion lies in making music primarily as a bass player.

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