Erik Jones will continue with Jimmie Johnson’s Legacy Motor Club for the third consecutive year in 2025. This year will mark his seventh Clash appearance since setting foot in the NASCAR Cup Series in 2015. As the season kicks off at Bowman Gray Stadium with the Clash, Jones took to social media to express his enthusiasm for the upcoming race.
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Erik shared a video featuring clips of his dog, scenes from the pit road, inside his #43 car, and more. The video was captioned, “Ready to get back behind the wheel. 2025 season starts tonight,” and had a voiceover.
In the video, Jones could said, “Bowman Gray is pretty unique for the sport. We’ve done a good job. The last three to four years now going back to some historic tracks, I think it means a lot to the local fans.”
He also commented on the track’s configuration, noting that it is more rounded and sweeping than the LA Memorial Coliseum, the previous venue of the Clash, which he believes might offer different overtaking opportunities.
He’s keen to discover whether there will be a viable second lane and if it’s possible to defend positions. Despite his optimism, Jones acknowledged, “It’ll be definitely tough. Bowman Gray looks really narrow, so it’ll be some really tight-quarters racing.”
Jones intends to leverage his experiences in Los Angeles to make a strong start at Bowman Gray and plans to adapt and learn from each race this year. When he first competed in The Clash in 2018, Jones had a promising start, lining up P4 and securing a P8-place finish. However, the following year proved challenging as he finished in P20 after being caught in a late 17-car pile-up during the 2019 event.
Yet, in 2020, Jones won his first Clash race in dramatic style, navigating through a crash-laden race that extended into four overtimes, with only six of the 18 starters crossing the finish line.
The victory marked the fifth win for the Toyota in the event and the ninth for Joe Gibbs Racing. Looking ahead to the upcoming Clash, Erik aims to secure his second victory in the event, building on his previous success.
Jones reflects on the upcoming season
Jones concluded the previous season in the P28 position, managing just one top-5 and one top-10 finish. The 2024 season also saw him grappling with a compression fracture in a lower vertebra, which sidelined him for races at Dover and Kansas. During his absence, Corey Heim took the wheel as a substitute driver.
Discussing the forthcoming season, Jones remarked: “I think the 2024 season was challenging but good in some ways. We obviously didn’t have the results we wanted but I think through the year probably identified where we needed to improve and what as a group we needed to get better at.”
He further elaborated, “I feel like at this point we’re pretty realigned and to the point where we need to get to the racetrack and see where we stack up and see what the changes we’ve made, how those are going to work, and how far they’re going to get us and how much more we need to go.”
With a change in his pit crew, Jones’s former crew chief, Dave Elenz, was replaced by Ben Beshore from teammate John Hunter Nemechek’s team for the last five weekends of the season. Beshore is slated to continue in this role for the 2025 season. It will be intriguing to see how Jones handles his #43 Toyota this year.
