BROOKLYN, Mich: Erik Jones made no mistake about it on Saturday morning at Michigan International Speedway, his home is at LEGACY MOTOR CLUB.
Earlier this week, the team confirmed its future in the NASCAR Cup Series will be with the Bryon, Mich. native, as the two have agreed to a new contract that will keep Jones behind the wheel of the No. 43 Toyota Camry for the foreseeable future.
Jones explained Saturday at Michigan International Speedway that it was not hard to get his new agreement done and that the Statesville, N.C.-based team is where he wanted to be.
“We got it done recently, and announced it here at Michigan, so I was happy to get it done,” Jones said. “It was a pretty easy negotiation, really. I think LEGACY was wanting me back, and I was wanting to go back.”
Jones did not elaborate specifically on how many other NASCAR Cup Series teams he talked to about for a potentially new ride next season, but Jones was adamant he was not leaving the LEGACY MOTOR CLUB stables unless it was for a championship-caliber organization.
“I think you always take a look when this comes around. There was no advance discussions but the team encouraged that,” Jones explained. “They knew the whole time where I was at, and what I was interested in doing, but we pretty quickly came to a point to redoing a deal with LEGACY.
“For me, looking at the landscape and where everything was at, what was possibly available and what other opportunities were out there – none of them were enticing enough for me that made me want to make a move. It is a challenge to make a move. It is a big move to switch teams, no matter what you are doing.
“For me, unless it was going to be a huge leap to a currently a race winning, championship contending team, I just wasn’t interested. I think we are building that right now with LEGACY, and that is a time away right now, but unless that was an instant move that I could make, I wasn’t changing.”
After switching manufacturers during the off-season from Chevrolet to Toyota, Jones acknowledged that this season hasn’t exactly gone as planned but believes he will come in his Cup Series prime over the next couple of years and believe LEGACY will find its groove and become a championship-caliber team.
“We are kind of getting to an important part of my career – the next stretch of my career, the next 10 years – are going to be some of my best, I would like to think,” explained Jones.
“I hope that I’m in equipment that is good enough to take advantage of it. There is a lot that I still want to do in the Cup Series, and a lot of goals that I have. Looking at the landscape of LEGACY, obviously, made the move to Toyota – and it has been a challenge. It has been a big undertaking for us, but we have recently brought on more people to kind of build that gap and continue to grow that and figure out how we are going to make ourselves a race winning team.”
Jones has seen the highs and lows of driving the No. 43 entry. From struggling to perform to putting the team back in Victory Lane, the roller coaster ride has no doubt been exhausting and even challenging at times, the future of LMC is what Jones believes in.
“It has been a lot of emotion, right?,” explained Jones. “I came to the 43 and it was definitely not a race-winning team, and then we got back to a race-winning team, and now we are back to in the ebb and flow of not being where we want to be, so but right now, regardless of what the results are showing, I would say that we are in a better spot for the future, than it’s really ever been since I’ve been in the 43 car.
“I had multiple sit-downs with Jimmie (Johnson), Cal (Wells), who is our president there, and diving into – okay, here is where we are. We see it. We don’t ignore the fact and how are we going to get where we want to be. It was laid out to me, well enough, that I felt good about coming back.”
Jones believes that the recent and expected race hires and the constant work from TRD behind the scenes will eventually work in the team’s favor – whether that’s earning a Playoff spot in 2023 or resetting ahead of the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season.
“There is a plan in place,” he said. “There are some people that were in the works of being hired, that weren’t quite down yet when I was redoing my deal. Some are there now, some are still coming in. There are contracts in place, and people have to finish their obligations out.
“There are enough people coming in that I felt confident that we would see improvement on our end, and I think what TRD has been doing on their end to start giving us what we need. At this point, we kind of have a good list of items that we feel like we need, and what we have and need to be better – to run better.
“There were definitely multiple conversations about that. I don’t think anyone involved wants to run how we have. We want to be a race-winning team. There is a longer road to get there currently. There are plans in place to make it work.”
Follow Chris Knight on X (Twitter) @Knighter01 or email at [email protected].
