BRISTOL, Tennessee — Erik Jones found the ideal way to atone from a mistake in Saturday’s Fitzgerald Glider Kits 300 at Bristol Motor Speedway, but it took a bump-and-run for Jones to complete his comeback at the .533-mile short track.
Recovering from a Lap 230 pit road speeding penalty that sent him to the back of the field, Jones worked his way to the front through a series of quick cautions and muscled Ryan Blaney out of the way to take the lead on Lap 280 of 300.
Jones held the top spot the rest of the way, through a caution that slowed the race after William Byron, Justin Allgaier, Brennan Poole and Austin Dillon were involved in a Turn 4 wreck on Lap 291. The race restarted on Lap 298, but Blaney couldn’t get to Jones’ bumper to return the favor before the checkered flag waved.
“It was just hard racing,” said Jones, who won his second straight NASCAR Xfinity Series race of the season, his second at Bristol and the eighth of his career.
“We ended up racing hard and getting by him. To come back from a pit road penalty like that, it’s a race I won’t forget for a long time — just an awesome day.”
On Sunday, the Food City 500 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race at Bristol, scheduled for an afternoon start, was postponed until Monday because of steady rain.
The eighth race of the season will be contested at 1 p.m. and broadcast on FOX-TV.
On Saturday, Blaney led the field to a restart on Lap 278, but Jones had superior speed on the short runs and quickly pulled up to Blaney’s bumper. As they raced hard into Turn 1, Jones applied the bumper of his No. 20 Toyota, sent Blaney’s No. 22 Ford up the track and made the decisive pass.
“He was so much better than us on the short runs,” Blaney said. “He wasn’t going to back out, and I wasn’t going to back out either. … I knew I pushed the issue with him. I knew he was close, and I don’t blame him for not backing out at that time.
“You can’t do that, so I took a chance, and we had some contact. Fortunately, we were able to get a restart in fourth [on Lap 298] and get to second and just couldn’t quite get close to make a run at him.”
To Jones, the bump was justified by late-race urgency and the relative speed of his car.
“At that point in the race I think there was less than 20 [laps] to go, and you have to do all you can to try to get to the lead,” he said. “I knew clean air was important, and we were quite a bit faster than the 22 just to fire off, and I guess just the track cooled down and we got some speed back in the car.
“We were able to get around him and get the lead, and from there, I think everyone was stuck on the bottom, and we were able to hold them off.”
It was a race of radically changing fortunes, and not just for Jones. Polesitter Kyle Larson led 180 laps, but cut a tire after contact with Brandon Jones’ Chevrolet on lap 261 — an incident that started a chain-reaction wreck that eliminated Cole Custer, Darrell Wallace Jr. and Garrett Smithley.
Larson compounded his issues with a penalty for a commitment line violation but came from the rear of the field in the final 30 laps to finish seventh.
Sunoco rookie Daniel Hemric came from a lap down to win the $100,000 Dash 4 cash bonus after the three other qualifiers for the Xfinity-sponsored prize — Custer, Allgaier and Brendan Gaughan — all were involved in accidents.
Hemric finished fifth behind Daniel Suarez in third and series leader Elliott Sadler in fourth.
On Sunday, the hourly weather forecast for Bristol had rain chances of at least 90 percent every hour until midnight. The Weather Channel forecast has rain continuing until about 9 a.m. Monday.
When the race gets underway, Kyle Larson will start on the pole. He garnered the top starting point as a result of rain forcing the cancellation of qualifying on Friday and the starting grid being set by car owner points. It is Larson’s third pole in the last four races.
“It’s been a good season for us,” Larson said. “Our race cars have been really fast. I’ve scored stage points in all but one of the stages. That is important to be the point leader. You’ve got to be running top-10 every race to gain as many points as you can. Like I said, our race cars have been extremely good to allow us to run up front like that. Hopefully, we can keep it going.
“It’s nice to be the point leader and be starting up front here at Bristol. I always race really well here. I just don’t qualify well. Being handed the pole like this will, hopefully, help us out on Tuesday or Wednesday, or whenever we race. It will be cool to start from the front and, hopefully, like I said, hopefully, that number one pit stall kind of helps us gain some spots on pit road and have a clean race.”
Chase Elliott will start the race second, next to Larson on the front row, making for an all-Chevrolet front row. Starting in the second and third rows will be Toyota driver Martin Truex Jr. and Ford drivers Brad Keselowski, Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney.