SPARTA, Ky. – Brandon Jones shot at his first career NASCAR Xfinity Series win went up in smoke during Friday night’s Alsco 300 at Kentucky Speedway.
After qualifying sixth, the No. 19 Menards Toyota Supra spent a majority of the race up front despite making slight contact with the wall in the early laps of Stage 1. With a fast Joe Gibbs Racing machine, Jones rallied back to the front and took the lead at the restart of Stage 2 and led seven laps before finishing the stage in second.
At the start of Stage 3, Jones took the lead from Chase Briscoe who stayed out on two tires, but while leading Jones informed his No. 19 Supra team that was losing power. While fading through the lead pack, Jones’s car began to billow blue smoke from the tailpipes.
Jones brought his race car to the attention of his Jeff Meendering led team where the diagnosis proved to be terminal, sending the team packing for the night and a 30th place finish for the Atlanta, Ga. native.
“A lot of smoke in the cab. I couldn’t really get the motor over 7,000 RPMs, so kind of a telltale sign for me that the motor was letting go there at the end,” said Jones.” That’s twice this weekend that we’ve been leading the race and something has taken us out – whether it’s been mechanical or an incident on the race track.
“What are you going to do? We’ve been running first both races this week and that’s what we’ve got to do, at least on my behalf. I hate it. We had Menards and we had Swiffer on the car this weekend. It was going great for us. I think we had the car to win the race tonight, but all in all, these guys worked really hard and I think they’re all behind me and we’re going to get this thing figured out.”
Oddly enough, it was the second engine failure for the team this season. After qualifying eighth at Richmond (Va.) Raceway this spring, Jones succumbed to a 33rd place finish after completing 175 of the 250 laps.
Despite the result on Friday night, Jones says it’s important for his team to remain upbeat moving forward, especially with their on-track performance.
“We talked about it earlier, it’s all about realizing where you’re running when this stuff is happening,” added Jones. “We continue to run top five. We continue to lead laps. This pit crew I had tonight was awesome. They were really getting me up front there. You put all that together and we’re going to keep going. These guys got a lot of momentum built up behind them so I think next week will be good.”
In 17 Xfinity Series starts this season, Jones has just three top-five and eight top-10 finishes and sits 12th in the championship standings, the final spot for the Xfinity Series playoff grid. He leads Gray Gaulding in 13th by 95 points.
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
