Brandon Jones Captures Toyota’s 500th NASCAR National Series Victory in Arizona

Brandon Jones Captures Toyota’s 500th NASCAR National Series Victory in Arizona

by March 8, 2020 0 comments

AVONDALE, Ariz. – Brandon Jones captured his second-career win in the NASCAR Xfinity Series on Saturday after passing Kyle Busch in the closing laps of the LS Tractor 200 at Phoenix Raceway.

With just 20 laps to go, Jones made his way around Busch for the race lead. Busch led a race high of 78 laps, but in the end, his front tires seemed to be too worn to stay out in front of the pack. Jones took advantage of the opportunity and held on to capture Toyota Racing’s 500th NASCAR national series victory.

“It just looked like his (Kyle Busch) stuff didn’t hold on very good,” said Jones, driver of the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 19 Menards/Turtle Wax Toyota. “He drove to the bottom and I looked at him and thought there’s no way he just went to the bottom since I was so strong on the top. That just gave us the position to do it. Man, I cannot believe the lead we ended up getting. These guys put in a lot of work. This is a new car we brought to the track this week. This is big for us.”

Harrison Burton entered the weekend coming off his first-career series victory at Auto Club Speedway. The 19-year-old earned another solid finish this weekend at Phoenix as he finished behind his teammate in second.

“That was Toyota’s 500th victory, so that’s really cool,” Burton said. “Good to be a one-two-three is how we could do it. Proud of our guys, proud of our effort. Wasn’t quite enough, but we’ll be back with the DEX Imaging Supra. Hopefully we’ll win the championship.”

Joe Gibbs Racing swept the top-three finishing positions as Busch held on for a third-place effort in the No. 54 Twix Cookies & Cream Toyota.

“Keeping the front tires on it,” Busch said. “Just killed the front tires. I’ve complained about the same things since we unloaded here and we arrived here to get it better and we just never did anything to make it any better. It’s just the group I got and we’re kind of behind the eightball a bit. Thanks to the JGR Xfinity shop for giving me a good piece here. Came out here to ride, but just missed the setup.”

Brad Keselowski and Justin Haley rounded out the top-five. Chase Briscoe finished sixth, followed by Stage 2 winner Noah Gragson, Austin Cindric, Ross Chastain and Riley Herbst.

There were seven cautions for 45 laps throughout the afternoon.

The first caution for a multicar accident occurred on lap 138, when Brandon Brown and Dillon Bassett got together in Turn 4. Brown got sideways and slid up into Bassett who then hit the outside wall. After the race, several crew members between the two teams got into a scuffle on pit road.

On lap 144, Daniel Hemric spin in Turn 2 and made hard contact with Alex Labbe and Ray Black Jr. Other drivers involved in the accident included Keselowski and Joe Graf Jr.

With back-to-back solid finishes, Burton continues to lead in the standings. He leads Briscoe by three points.

The NASCAR Xfinity Series will visit Atlanta Motor Speedway on Saturday, March 14 for the EchoPark 250. Live coverage of the race will broadcast on FOX Sports 1 (FS1) and the Performance Racing Network (PRN) at 4 p.m. ET.

Photo Credit: Chris Graythen/Getty Images

No Comments so far

Jump into a conversation

No Comments Yet!

You can be the one to start a conversation.

<