“Everything that could go wrong has gone wrong,” Erik Jones laments the NASCAR penalty and DISSAPOINTING cars fielded by Jimmie Johnson’s team
Erik Jones and his team desperately need to secure a win this season to prove their worth to the Cup garage.
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Jimmie Johnson and Erick Jones
LEGACY MOTOR CLUB was expected to be one of the race-win contenders in the 2023 season after Erik Jones’s impressive year last year. Fans’ optimism doubled when Jimmie Johnson joined the team as co-owner and part-time driver ahead of the season finale. But since Daytona 500, they have been among the worst-performing sides.
The Chevy team’s situation went from bad to worse after he was given an L2-level penalty for unauthorized modification of the greenhouse. The No:43 driver was 60 championship points and 25 playoff points. This put Jones, the team’s sole playoff hope, 122 points out of the cut-off line. Jones now has to produce something special, just like his upset Southern 500-win last season for playoffs.
Erik Jones discussed the gravity of the penalty imposed on them for a mistake during a mid-week late model race, which he won in his childhood hometown Western Michigan. He pointed out that everything had gone wrong for his team this season, and the penalty came at a time when the team was seeing some hope.
“I mean, man, it’s hard to pinpoint one thing, you know. I think it’s just everything that could go wrong has gone wrong… Then obviously, Gateway, I think it was going to be an okay day and then we had the issue on pit road… Just when I feel like we’re finally getting out cars kind of close to where we want them to be, we now just have the rest of the world falling down on us,” Jones told Sportsnut.com.
“It’s obviously unfortunate. I don’t know what the plan of attack is … Hopefully we can find one. It’s a bummer for a lot of reasons. Dave sitting out is not something we want. The points penalty and fine is not something we need either,” Jones later added.
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The Next-Gen is intensifying its struggles, according to Erik Jones
The introduction of Next-Gen cars in 2022 increased competition in the sport while limiting the budget. It has been a success to a limit. But it also came with certain challenges, and Jones pointed out that the time of chasing pure speed by working on just downforce has gone, and teams now have to invest more in making the cars drive well.
“It’s interesting because the old car was all about chasing downforce, chasing pure speed, so getting them to drive right wasn’t that hard…We actually have to get them driving good. It’s not like you can just pile-on all the downforce from the simulator and just go out and race it,” Jones said.
“That doesn’t always really add up. So, it’s kind of a unique perspective. You’re sometimes chasing things that seem a little bit backward. I’m pretty sure we’re not the only team that feels that way. It’s tough because this car is still so new that we think we know what we’re doing, making changes that should make the car drive really good, and it just hasn’t always added up that way,” Jones added.
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Justin P Joy
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