Jones eyes Iowa Speedway as cure for Truck Series woes

NEWTON - Erik Jones has been fast in every car or truck he's raced in NASCAR's top three series this season. He's been fast enough to win more often than not, in fact.

The 19 year-old Michigan native does have one win in 2015 - in April in the NASCAR Xfinity Series at Texas Motor Speedway - but whether by luck or providence, he's come up short since that win in some of the most painful ways possible.

'It's just been a really unfortunate couple of weeks and really an unfortunate month on the Truck side of things,” said Jones, who will bring his No. 4 Toyota to Iowa Speedway for Friday's American Ethanol 200. 'We just haven't had things quite work out for us, so we've been pushing along and bringing fast Tundras to the track every week. It's just a matter of putting it all together and figuring out how to execute at the end of the day and keep ourselves in contention.

'It's not a lack of preparation or effort by any means, it's just a series of things not playing out like we need them to.”

He has starts in all three series, including his first in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series at Kansas Speedway, where he wrecked while running in the top 10. But his biggest heartbreaks have come in the series in which he's running for points, the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series.

At Kansas Speedway in May, he led 151 of the 167 laps, but was caught by fuel mileage and finished 11th after starting on the pole. At the next race in Charlotte, he led 88 of 139 laps after starting second, and was beat to the line by 0.005 seconds for the win by Kasey Kahne. At Texas Motor Speedway two weeks ago, he led 68 of the 167 laps from the pole, but ran out of fuel trying to stretch to the end and finished 15th. Then last week, he had the dominant truck at Gateway Motorsports Park, leading a race-high 84 of the 160 laps again from the pole, but had electrical issues, a blown left rear tire and finished 23rd.

The young racer has let his emotions get the best of him inside the car, and the disappointment of not being able to close the deal was etched in his face in post-race news conferences throughout the month.

'I think we've all learned as we've gone on and improved how we've handled it,” Jones said. 'I don't know if some of the situations and the way we dealt with them - especially at the track - were the best way to deal with them, but I think we've all learned from it.”

Jones got a respite from the heartbreak by going to his home state and winning one of the biggest asphalt Late Model races in the Midwest, the ARCA/CRA Battle at Berlin 251. He said the race was meant to be a source of relief - a vacation of sorts, where he could go out on a Tuesday night and have fun with no pressure involved.

When things are going wrong repeatedly at a driver's day job, he said, it can get into their head and have a snowball effect. Hopefully a win on his home turf can hit the reset button headed into Iowa Speedway on Friday.

'I think when everything's going right and you're winning races, everything comes natural and comes easy. When you're not winning races you feel like you have to go out and press sometimes,” Jones said. 'That never works out for the best. Any time you can get a win and get things sorted back out where they need to be (mentally) and figure out how to go out and do your deal again. Sometimes you lose sight of what you did before to win races.

'It's hard sometimes not to put pressure on yourself and think you need to win every week. That's not really the case. We just need to figure out how to go back to running our races.”

If nothing else, that the series rolls into Iowa Speedway should be calming for Jones.

He's got five career starts at the track in Newton in the NASCAR Xfinity Series (he was third in the 3M 250 his May), Camping World Truck Series and ARCA Racing Series, with an average finish of 5.2 and a worst finish of 11th in his lone ARCA start. In his three NCWTS starts, he has an average finish of 4.0, highlighted by his win in this race last year.

'We've honestly ran out of things to go wrong - at least that's how I'm looking at it,” Jones said. 'I think we've went through it all and fixed everything that has gone wrong.

'Iowa has been a good place for me. That was our first win last year (at Iowa) and was a turning point for us. Hopefully this will be the same and we can grab a win and get our season back on track.”

The American Ethanol 200 is set for 7:30 p.m. and can be seen on FOX Sports 1.

l Comments: (319) 368-8884; jeremiah.davis@thegazette.com