DARLINGTON, S.C. — No one who celebrated at Victory Lane on Sunday night would call this “redemption” for Erik Jones.
Not Petty GMS director of competition Joey Cohen. Not crew chief Dave Elenz. Not even Jones himself — the guy who found himself fist-pumping in front of a sea of confetti at Darlington Raceway, an achievement not many saw coming soon (or again at all) considering all he’s been through in the past 25 months.
But it certainly felt like redemption.
“I guess, probably, a lot of people counted me out,” Jones said. He later added, “I just never looked at it that way.”
In August 2020, Jones was “blindsided a little bit” when he was informed that he wouldn’t be returning to Joe Gibbs Racing. He then signed to drive the No. 43 car for Richard Petty Motorsports — now Petty GMS after a merger — and struggled to shine in 2021 for an organization still finding its footing: He earned only five top 10 finishes, no poles, a total of nine laps led last year.
Jones said that when he made the move to Petty GMS, he knew that people figured that this might be his last run at the Cup level. That he “was done.”
And yet here he was on Sunday, victorious, stealing the show as the first non-playoff driver to ever win the first race of the Cup playoffs.
After all that, would he and his team consider using that word — redemption? No.
“I don’t think it’s redemptive,” Elenz said. “Obviously last year was a tough season for him. I watched from afar last year. There were races that were good, a lot that weren’t great. But that’s resources. That’s cars that he’s having to run. That has nothing to do with him. I think he believed in himself and what he’s capable of. I obviously believe in that. I think it’s a continuation of where he left off more than redemption.”
Said Jones: “Obviously I was a little in a bad spot towards the end of 2020 trying to find a new home, and the 43 car became that and took me in. ... It’s just been cool to see, cool to be a part of. Coming from a four-car powerhouse team like I was at to what was a single-car team last year to now a two-car team this year, and building into a race-winning program now — it’s probably the most rewarding (win) of my racing career.”
For as much as the victors stopped short of calling Sunday a story of redemption, something was redeemed.
Or at least relived.
Jones’ win is the first for the No. 43 car in eight years. It comes after an exceptionally abysmal run at Darlington in 2021 — one that Jones chuckled at when he recounted it on Sunday in Darlington’s media center: The team finished 32nd, lingering in the back and still blowing out an engine.
It comes exactly 55 years — to the day — after Richard “The King” Petty, the winningest driver in NASCAR Cup Series history, notched his one and only Southern 500 win.
And, above all else, it comes two years after Jones was probably counted out, he said.
Sunday’s win didn’t come easily. It required Jones running in the top 10 for virtually all of Stage 3. Late in the race, he benefited from the No. 18 car’s engine breaking down, sending Kyle Busch to the garage. Then Jones seized the lead with 20 laps to go and held on — finding a way to fend off playoff driver and contender Denny Hamlin of Joe Gibbs Racing, the team that dropped Jones in August 2020.
It’s true that Jones has won twice before in Darlington. It’s true that he’s notched three Cup Series wins. It’s true that when the Petty owner group signed him, it didn’t consider the 26-year-old driver a gamble for the moment — he was a plan for the future.
And yet the idea that Jones had something to prove, something to redeem, reigned true on Sunday night. On pit road, fourth-place Joey Logano of Team Penske could imagine that Jones’s win was perhaps more special because of all he’s gone through.
“I lived through a similar to story to him,” Logano said. “Not the complete same, but a similar story. And it’s a kick in the gut when you lose your job. But he’s persevered pretty well from what I’ve seen.”
Another person saw it, too — his boss, The King, Richard Petty.
“I talked to him on the phone, him and Dale Inman ...” Jones said. He added: “I obviously have gotten to know The King pretty well over the last year, almost two years now, and I wish I could have seen him face to face just to see his emotion, and I will.
“I really would love to just sit down and watch the race with him, especially the ending there and talk about it. But it’s been fun, man.”
Redemptive, too.
