Joe Gibbs Racing’s Erik Jones and Daniel Suárez should be considered among the drivers to beat for the NASCAR XFINITY Series championship.
During a Tuesday media availability at the NASCAR Hall of Fame, both described the challenges of racing as teammates, but also as individual competitors, when the NASCAR XFINITY Series Chase playoffs kick off Saturday with the VisitMyrtleBeach.com 300 at Kentucky Speedway (8 p.m. ET on NBCSN).
“The teammate deal is always tough in racing and it’s been tough since racing’s been around,” said Jones, who leads XFINITY Series regulars with four wins this season. “So there’s times when you have to race like teammates and there’s times you have to race like competitors and you can’t be teammates at times. It’s a tough balance for sure, but it’s also nice when you go to the race track and have other drivers to lean on and you can get information from them and better each other.”
Suárez didn’t agree with Jones’ sentiments, but didn’t totally dismiss them either.
“I don’t really agree with what Erik just mentioned,” said the 24-year-old Mexican, who has one win and 20 top-10 finishes this season. “I think it’s very helpful through the practice and qualifying having all that extra information of a good teammate to try to put a good race car together for the race. He just mentioned it though, it’s hard to balance that because both of us want to race hard for wins, but at the same time we have to take care of ourselves to not wreck each other. I think both of us have a shot to be competitive every single weekend of the Chase and hopefully both of us can make it to Homestead and have some fun in the second half of the race.”
Jones and Suárez should start the Chase off well. In the July race at Kentucky, Suárez finished third, while Jones placed fourth. Jones was leading the race on the next-to-last restart on Lap 180-of-201 when he failed to keep pace with the pace car, forcing him to fall back to third before the race resumed.
“Hopefully we’re in the same position where we’re up front and challenging for a win and we can get a win early on (in the Chase),” Jones said. “But Kentucky is a place I like. I really liked the old surface a lot, but I really like the new surface as well. It was pretty good to us earlier this year, so I expect to be pretty good.”
Source: Staff Report / NASCAR Wire Service
